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Army of Lovers / Alcazar / BWO @ G-A-Y
I’ve long harboured a dislike for the club / empire known as G-A-Y (not least because of my disdain for the self-appointed saviour of the fay scene Jeremy Joseph - a man whose self-importance grates on me no end). Indeed, I haven’t set foot in the venue for several years. But last night, I was finally lured back for a “one-night-only” reformation of Alcazar and Army of Lovers in order to help launch BWO in Britain.
All three acts have been founded / membered by Alexander Bard and it was ostensibly a celebration of his 20 years of high-campery in pop music. Obviously I’d seen BWO live the other month so I wasn’t too fussed about seeing a cutdown version of that set, although it would have been sing-a-long-tastic. I was, however, quite keen on seeing Army of Lovers and Alcazar, particularly the former since I’ve got heavily into “Les Greatest Hits” of late, so Paul, Chris and I decided to brave it.
I quickly wished we hadn’t. G-A-Y was in some respects the same as ever. There were minty queens - old and young - in crop-tops; the music often veered off fun and cheesy pop into tedious and lengthy remixes; and as ever the acts didn’t come on until 1:30 in the morning and only did a couple of tracks. This, coupled with the bar prices, the overuse of smoke effects and so on made it a level of hell which Dante would have been reluctant to write about.
There were two differences I noted, however. One that it was empty until about 12 (is it’s popularity on the wane?) and the other was that with the smoking ban in place my nostrils were instead belaboured with the scent of poppers and rampant body odour which I’m fairly certain I find more offensive to be honest. Ho hum.
So by 1:30, I was somewhat tired of the place anyway. But looking forward to the show.
Sadly Army of Lovers did one song. And mimed it all. I mean, the performance was camp as tits, surreal and hysterical with it (the black sex doll getting a good flinging round for one thing) so it was a good performance, but they only did “Crucified”. There was no “Sexual Revolution”, no “Israelism”, no “La Plage De Saint Tropez”, just one track from the band I had in fact been hoping would be the highlight of the evening. So already I felt a little deflated.
Thankfully Alcazar did a good turn. Andreas is a damn good little mover - and hot as hell to boot - and despite the eneregctic dance moves they all sang live which was quite an impressive feat. Tracks such as “This is the World We Live In” (Yay!), “Start the Fire” (Meh!), and “Crying and the Dicotheque” (Yay!) made an appearance and things hotted up quite nicely for BWO’s entrance.
There was a slight uncomfortable moment when Jeremy Joseph tried to persuade Andreas to commit to Alcazar permanently reforming. Perhaps unsurprisingly given he’s trying to work on his solo career, Andreas was having none of it, but seeing Joseph trying to bludgeon him into it was a bit squirm-inducing.
The BWO set was predictably good, if a little less energectic than its predecessors by comparison. “Chariots of Fire” got two airings to bookmark the set (well it is out on Monday), and the current Swedish single “Save My Pride” and an old favourite “Temple of Love” were all well recieved. Martin Rolinksi is an enthusaistic performer it must be said and played happily to the audience by covering himself in water and stripping to the wait during the course of one song, which was certainly welcome.
But all told I couldn’t help but feel, as I queued with aching feet and ringing ears, that the mere fact it was G-A-Y took rather too much of the joy out of it really. Given how run-down the venue has become and how obnoxious the club itself actually is I can’t help but feel that attempts to save it from demolition by the Crossrail project would be better off failing.
So an odd evening all round.
Posted on July 22, 2007 | Filed Under Pop Music
Comments
Response left by Pandemonia on July 25th, 2007
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You are - according to my work system an occult site. Obviously they’ve been spying on us!
Would be lovely to have a couple of smaller more varied clubs to replace its ghastlyness.