Hotly tipped newcomers face a mixed reaction
About as different as you can get from Pig Irön’s plodding southern twang, The Glitterati confidently take to the stage as the more traditional listeners take refuge in the sounds of Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts in the pub next door. Their image is faded glam meets punk metal, although from the bluster and effort on the stage they do look a little more like they’ve just borrowed their girlfriends’ clothes for a talent show. But the sound isn’t all that bad; it’s exactly what you’d expect it to bed when you look at them. A little 80s metal, a little late 70s pop/punk, and a whole lotta attitude.
Frontman Paul Gautrey stomps around in circles during most of the songs, twirling his mic stand, and you’re not sure if it’s a release of nervous energy, pre-planned, or just a lack of anything else to do. But it’s quite distracting. There’s a lot of material from the new album, their first since 2005, which they’re clearly hoping is going to be the one to break this up-and-coming band out of the (surprisingly good) support slots of late and into notoriety in their own right. New single ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ certainly brings the crowd to fist-punching life, as does the sleazy riffage of the disturbingly memorable ‘Fucks Me Up’, and the cliché but good ‘Betterman’.
After much plugging of the free to download single and the album due out in 2010, we’re introduced to the potential second single ‘Too Many Girls’. Gautrey tries his best to shake the majority of the crowd out of their apathy with an appeasing “We know it’s early, you know it’s early… can we put it out of our minds for a bit?” Apparently not. There’s plenty of chat, and they’re not short of confidence, but apart from a few outstanding gems most of it falls a bit flat despite the hectic pace.