JULIETTE & THE LICKS
at the Ambassador, Dublin, Ireland
show review by Cormac Figgis
3 MAY 07
juliette & the licks epitomize what is shallow and throwaway about so much of the music that has been foisted upon us by the record companies and pr machines of the last decade or so. i saw them in the voodoo lounge a couple of years ago and despite the overwhelming amount of people and the electric atmosphere they just didn’t convince. i thought that with time and a little more used grease in their wheels they would have something worthy of the excitement that seems to surround them, but i was to be disappointed again. even the recent added experience of having dave grohl involved hasn’t added anything.
the metro riots (‘the… who?’, i hear you ask), who have been on tour with the licks for the past four weeks, left me utterly speechless. they are a complete package of every bad rock cliche that one can possibly think of; sunglasses, the ‘dublin we love you’ catch phrase and the ‘this song is dedicated to…’ (a person no one has ever heard of nor cares about) while pointing to one of his mates who smugly nods and looks around in non recognition from the sparse crowd. they give the impression that they believe themselves to be mega gods in the rock world, an arrogance which is laughable considering their total lack of anything.
everything about the licks seems forced. seeing them this time around at the ambassador, i couldn’t help the feeling that i was watching a bad rock band in a bad movie directed by someone with no understanding, interest or experience of music or performance. it was like an audition for the indie equivalent of velvet goldmine. from the stolen tacky 80s riffs and spinal tap posturing to the utterly bewildering north american indian touches of feathers in a head band. they are a bad pastiche of everything that was never very interesting from the 70s and 80s to begin with. juliette is evidently very passionate about what she’s doing and she puts on a fully physical show, but there is just a sense of something wrong underpinning her heavily rehearsed moves and bizarre choice of dress.
i managed to get through five songs and fought the urge to leave with the thought that they might pull something out of the bag before the end of the show. but i know from past experience of bands that fail to make an initially positive impression that this is never the case. i went home feeling robbed of a good night and my €30.
