The Rakes @ Norwich UEA

In the era of their debut album Capture/Release, a Friday night would have been an apt time for a Rakes gig; a band who built their edgy, post-punk stylings around stories of work, work, work, pubbing, clubbing, and sleeping, especially with those who may seem undesirable in the cold light of day – the lyric “she was overweight, what did I do last night?” seems to sum it up succinctly – think Hard-Fi (if you can bear it) but far less awful. But this is 2007, and the band have inevitably moved on – their new album Ten New Messages showcasing a more expansive sound and altogether bigger issues – life and racial tensions in London post-7/7, for one. Unfortunately they seem to have been beaten to this concept by a matter of weeks by Bloc Party, but typically the NME have decided that the popularity of The Rakes should be over, scandalously giving the album 5/10 in a recent review – surely the Arctic Monkeys backlash will come shortly also. The enthusiastic and interestingly diverse from expectations crowd at this particular Friday night Norwich UEA gig, however, seemed uninterested in what any increasingly out of touch, sensationalist, essentially tabloid music weekly has to say about one of the best bands to come out of the post-Franz explosion.

I have little to say about the support acts; Norwich’s fine transport system transpired to allow us to miss first support band Love Is All, yet I imagine they were much the same as when they supported Regina Spektor at the Astoria last month – see previous review. The Holloways were the main support band, and while they generated interest from the enthusiastic kiddies at the front, they seemed a fairly average Libertines-esque indie rock band.

I first saw The Rakes alongside Editors as a relatively unknown support band to Franz Ferdinand in the cavernous Alexandra Palace two years ago – despite being a fan at the time, I recall they seemed lost in such a large venue. Yet in the confines of the UEA’s Lower Common Room they create a frenzied atmosphere, no doubt enhanced by the vibrant lighting setup and lead singer Alan Donohoe’s well-documented jerky dancing style – think Ian Curtis, but apparently he’s no influence – which got the crowd moving in imitation from the off. The angular post-punk guitar of the music itself does tend to lend itself to throwing shapes, with the band rattling through tracks from both albums in their tight set. Retreat, Strasbourg and a raucous 22 Grand Job elicited the biggest reactions from the crowd, many obviously unfamiliar as yet with much of the recently released new album – however new single We Danced Together, the catchy Trouble, excellently titled When Tom Cruise Cries and “one for the girls” Little Superstitions all went down well. Early b-side Ausland Mission and one-off single All Too Human also received airings, with the latter particularly well received. The classic Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep) from their debut rounded off the main set, and an encore including Open Book with its singalong refrain and a truncated version of the originally near-18 minute The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect ended the gig, written as a commission for a fashion show and now forming the opener to the new album (thankfully clocking in recorded at a much more manageable five minutes).

We were able to meet the band after the gig and they were very friendly chaps with a lot of time for their fans; The Rakes are fully deserving of reaching the heights of a number of their contemporaries. Whether the NME with their obvious influence on the flavour of the month will allow this to happen seems to be in doubt, but Donohoe’s comments in his mid-set banter on the review seem to suggest he doesn’t particularly care, and nor should those with any taste for a decent British guitar rock band not afraid to break away from their safety net.