“Way back when the Klaxons sat down and tossed out the term “new-rave” as a joke description for a new genre sweeping the nation, did they really know the impact they were about to unleash? With the third series of The Mighty Boosh returning with a punch-line based around the concept of new-rave and making new what was old, its fair to say that 2007 has been a major year for the three-piece.” Andy Reilly
There are a whole list of bands doing the New-Rave thing in their own way, but none have made a mark with quite the splash on the mainstream music world as Klaxons. With the Mercury Music Prize under their belt, alongside countless sold out tours and major festival performances, not to mention romance and broken bones which saw the band become tabloid newspaper fodder, where do you begin when considering the year this lot have had? With the album of course, because, playing live aside, that’s what a band should be judged on.
A succession of singles and headline grabbing live shows in 2006 meant that, along with the View’s album, this was the most eagerly awaited release of the New Year. Whether you were desperate to see how the band would develop, or simply waiting for the bubble to burst with an album that couldn’t live up to the hype, the arrival of ‘Myths of the Near Future’ was an exciting moment.
But why the hope they might fall flat on their arse? They are after all, just a band making a few tunes for the entertainment of others. This was primarily because a certain weekly music magazine that at last check doesn’t shift as many copies as Kerrang! Were championing them as if Che Guevara was riding into town at the head of an electronica revolution. Klaxons headlined the NME’s Nu-Rave Tour in the autumn of 2006,
reviewed here, and the band were to hit the road again with the magazine in February for their annual awards tour. Seizing the moment, the NME put on two tours, one for the more guitar driven folk featuring The Automatic and the View, and the other, under the banner of Indie Rave, saw Klaxons joined by CSS, Sunshine Underground and New Young Pony Club.
Our reviewer Andy Reilly kept a close eye on the rise of New-Rave in it’s early days, and after seeing Klaxons, Shitdisco and Datarock in Glasgow in October, offered
this assessment of the bands, the scene and the publicity it was generating.
The album duly arrived, and was the instant hit most expected it to be. Sales aren’t always a barometer for quality, but those who were hoping for a continuation of what they’d seen live and heard with the singles, weren’t disappointed. It wasn’t perfect, few debut albums are, but it did show that the band had enough by way of decent material, not to fall into the all hype and no substance category. Andy considers the record’s strengths and weaknesses
here.
More tours followed, we caught them in
Portsmouth in June, with Glastonbury, T in the Park, Reading and Leeds on their schedule for the festival season.
A frantic twelve months was rounded off in style as the band picked up the Mercury Prize in September, ahead of yet another set of sell out shows. They beat off competition from Arctic Monkeys, Amy Winehouse, The View, Maps, New Young Pony Club, Young Knives, Bat For Lashes and Jamie T to take the award for best UK album. They were set to make an appearance on BBC TV the following morning, but, as was reported by the publication that has hung on to their coat tails more than most, they weren’t in a suitable state to do the interview, meaning an NME journalist did the honours instead. Fitting in a way since from the outside looking in, both parties have done each other proud, with one playing storming gigs on tours promoted widely by the other. That said (as Andy Reilly wrote back in 2006), “they would be standing on the edge of a breakthrough even if it wasn't for the NME's involvement so lets not get carried away in thinking the band owe anything to the magazines patronage, they might be speeding the process up slightly but there's nothing happening now that wasn't bound to happen.”
And that ultimately is the point, and why they’re listed as one of our bands of 2007. The press, music or otherwise, have been great for Klaxons, but they created a sound, and a party to go with it, that has been lapped up by thousands up and down the UK for the past eighteen months or more. Sure other bands are doing it too, some before the Klaxons came along, but it can’t be argued that the plan certainly came together: and the masses loved it!
You can see who else we’ve featured by
clicking here.