REVIEW: MISTY S BIG ADVENTURE@ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 19 WHEN a pop band is joined on stage by a purple creature affectionately named Erotic Volvo, you know this isn t going to be your average gig. With Birmingham eight-piece, Misty
REVIEW: MISTY'S BIG ADVENTURE@ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER 19
WHEN a pop band is joined on stage by a purple creature affectionately named Erotic Volvo, you know this isn't going to be your average gig.
With Birmingham eight-piece, Misty's Big Adventure, things have never been simple. "We started off 10 years ago as a duo, just me and the drummer," lead singer Grandmaster Gareth tells me before the show.
"Now there's eight of us, it just kind of happened."
The Cambridge gig began the band's biggest ever headline tour. The often bewildered audience at Anglia Ruskin were in for a real treat. A band whose nationwide cult status has been helped enormously by the emergence of internet downloads and myspace, they're still wonderfully modest about the big strides they are creating for themselves.
"We've never really fitted in the music scene, we've always been the outsiders," Gareth says. But, with over 5,000 views of their new video, Fashion Parade (featuring Noddy Holder from 70s glam rockers Slade) on the YouTube website, word is getting around.
Thursday's performance was rather special, beyond the modern masterpieces of their crowd pleasers, Two Brains and the political election song, Evil, it's also a delight to watch a band play with such enjoyment, fluency and tightness. Only a minority of the Cambridge audience had heard a Misty's song before, but by the end of the evening it's incredible to see how many people were dancing, moving and converted to the magic of an extremely powerful force - exactly as I was when I first saw them last December in Ipswich. Brought to Cambridge by Hope Street Music as part of their new series of Rocker nights, they were a risk that was justified.
INFORMATION: Rocker nights at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge: Metro Riots tomorrow, (Thursday), Kobai, November 2, Six Nation State, November 9, Akira The Don November 16, Gundogs November 23 and Rotating Leslie November 30. See www.hopestreetmusic.net
RICHARD PAUL
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