Last night we went to see Nouvelle Vague play at the Concert Hall. (I still can't get used to calling it Hamer Hall. For some reason I can handle calling the Tennis Centre Rod Laver, but not that. Go figure.)
Anyway, they were amazing.
Emilie Simon was the support act, and easily as good as the main show. You gotta love a diminutive French chick doing beautiful original electronica, with some Peter Gabriel and Nirvana covers thrown in. She was backed by a percussionist (whose surfaces included a washboard, wooden piano frame, and a large tub of water) and a dude looking like Mandrake the Magician who, armed with a sampler, mixer, glockenspiel, wireless PlayStation controller and theremin spent the show recording random bits and pieces and looping them back. It was even odder than it sounds, and really quite mesmerising.
After the break Nouvelle Vague came on and did their thing, which is basically two (more) hot French chicks and an acoustic jazz band doing Frenchy covers of British punk and post-punk songs from the late 70s and early 80s.
They opened with awesome versions of Echo and the Bunnymen's The Killing Moon and Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself, before heading on into the usual suspects like Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart and crossing the pond for a very danceable version of the Dead Kennedys' Too Drunk to Fuck. We had seats in the front, so I couldn't see if the grannies in the audience joined in on the chorus for that one, as we did.
Instruments included (in addition to the regular guitar, drums and keyboard), a Double Bass, Melodica, and Kazoo. I never thought a kazoo could be sexy, but I was clearly wrong.
11 out of 10
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