Art Brut, Backstage Werk Munich, 05/18/09

Are you ready, Art Brut?

When spring is around the corner and you have the feeling it is time for something new, then an Art Brut concert is an advisable thing to do. You can work yourself out, find new friends while poging and let Eddie Argos give you important pieces of wisdom.

Yes, Eddie Argos likes to talk. Every song was introduced with „Are you ready, Art Brut“ and a questioning look at his bandmates. Between songs he chats with his fans and most of the lyrics are actually just talking, too. After the second song Argos apologized for not dancing that much due to a back injury he had during a very exzessive gig some days ago. But instead he offered to take off some clothes. The murmur and recognition in the audience to this offer was overwhelming. Although he only lifted his shirt a little bit and therefore not fully met expectations, people acknoledged the gesture with smoothly shifting into singing along to „Moving To L.A.“. This song is hard to top in prophetical meanings since it was written years ago from the Eddie Argos living in Britain and was now sung by an Eddie Argos who has actually moved to L.A. Thank god he did not mutate to a typical Californian sunnyboy but kept his fine british humour and sense of cynisism, because that is the one major thing in Art Brut’s lyrics that makes it so interesting. 

A live performance from Art Brut is never stiffly read from paper. They changed refrains, added catchy phrases and threw in some critical statements towards colleagues and the business. For example, instead of „I’m drinking Henessey with Morrissey“ Argos sang „I’m drinking Long Island Ice Tea with Jay Z“. As odd as this sentence might sound to the fan, I guess that would be actually a cool thing. It would be nice to see what comes out of Art Brut spending a night drinking with a rapper. As outgoing and unconventional the band was on stage, the audience just copied their behaviour. They were a little careless, cynical and wild. Crowdsurfers and pogers were all around and never still, some of them even hopped on stage and continued dancing there while the band smiled and let them do so. Of course the security was not as easy as the band and kicked the people off the stage again. But still, you don’t see that very often and normally even a hardcore fan would not dare to try.

With songs like „Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll“, „Direct Hit“ and „DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshakes“ Art Brut jostled us through their portfolio of the last five years in almost chronological order. It seemed arranged very exactly in all the liberality of the rest of the performance. Then Eddie Argos gave us the long sought-after clue to the Emily Kane story: Eddie’s teenage love has of course heard the song dedicated to her and contacted Eddie again. They had a phone call, talked about the good old times, and the end of the story: He is not in love with Emily Kane.

What impresses the most in Art Brut songs is not the extraordinary singing voice, the fast paced rythms or the rowdy guitars. No, it’s the lyrics, which sometimes are so wonderfully subliminal and a tiny bit mean. The line „How can you just sleep at night when there’s still people buying records from Razorlight?“ alone is superior in it’s critical comedy and tells you everything about what Eddie Argos thinks about the majority of big selling players in the business. But later that night he hit the nail on the head when he repeated the words „Am I human or am I dancer? My sex is on fire!“ over and over again. You can only love Art Brut for pointing their fingers like that on musicians who think of themselves as the biggest gift for gods green planet.

Popular Culture does apply to Eddie Argos – even if in an upside down way.