Dead Cat Bounce – Caged Heat
Dead Cat Bounce @ Gluttony (Excess Theatre)
8:15pm, Sun 20 Feb 2011
After my first exposure to Dead Cat Bounce (at the Gluttony Showcase gig earlier in the week), I vowed not to miss their show this year. The stars aligned, a timeslot opened up, and there we were – sharing the Excess Theatre with maybe sixty other punters.
The rock-star sensibilities that I’d spotted earlier? They’re still there, contrasting the clever comedic interludes between songs really well; there’s some predictable theatrics (delusions of “serious” versus “comedy” band) and some expected drummer-bashing, but it’s all polished material and competently delivered.
But the real glory of Dead Cat Bounce is in their songs… and, whilst they’re a musically unsurprising guitar/bass/synth/drums outfit, lyrically they’re a hell of a lot of fun. From the boy-band-esque Overenthusiastic Contraceptive Lady (with its African choir breakdown), through the gorgeously imaginative synth-driven Christians In Love, to the wonderful storytelling rhythms of Switzerland, and the profanity-filled rap of Firemen (“we’ve got four motherfuckin’ firemen in the truck, but we ain’t got no motherfuckin’ hose”), there’s a lot of laughter to be had.
But by the time we got to their The Day We Fired The Drummer bit (complete with hang-dog over-acting), bleeding into the “buy our CD” encore, the band have lost a bit of their impact… it’s all got a little too samey. I suffered from the hot mixing, too, sparking my tinnitus and making some of the lyrics tricky to distinguish – which, as you might imagine, took the edge off the show somewhat for me.
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the show – I love the Dead Cats’ stage manner and execution and polish (the little vocal punctuations in the middle of songs are comedic genius). It’s just that I’d have been happy with a shorter set and more sedate sound levels… christ that makes me sound old.