Altsounds - My Toys Like Me - Korova Bar [Live]

Local promoter Revo Ziganda puts on his EVOL night in the basement of the Korova Bar in Liverpool. We braved the rain and the hordes of Friday night hen parties this end of town, incongruous in trainers and combats. We arrived soaked by the rain at Korova barely knowing who was on, much less what to expect.

Support band "Hallo I Love You" were themselves lovable enough, only their fourth gig and apparently having a few problems on stage. If truth be told, they were actually what attracted me to go, but we'll leave reviewing them till another time. I'm not even sure who the next support were, they were dire pub rock, so we'll leave that as well.

I do like the way that on this sort of night, very local support bands bring their own very local supporters, so that between acts, as well as the stage getting re-built, there is also a sort of flushing out of that band's supporters, only to make room for this lot.

Headliners MY TOYS LIKE ME spent quite some time getting set up on stage - all of them apart from vocalist Frances Noon who did the star bit and hid in the dressing room. When they did eventually come out, it was initially just Noon and keyboardist Lazio Legezer. These two originally WERE the band, but have now added two more members, presumably to round out the sound live, which is how it worked out tonight.

As much as the rest are musicians, it is clear that Frances Noon is the one with the artistic bent. The whole schtick, the glittery glasses, the spangly jewelled chain for said glasses, the wedding-veil thingy made into a ruff, but only on one side, coming off like a single winged fairy. This was slightly reminiscent of the hen nights up above on the street, but much, much cooler. It was enough to draw in the art school / fashion crowd to add to the more usual habitués of the Korova cellar. All night Frances kept up the dancing, gyrating, posing, climbing on the speaker stacks.

And the music? I could describe it best as electronic bleepery with breathy vocals over, which doesn't really do the actual sound justice. They are nothing at all like La Roux, or Little Boots, or Chew Lips; they are much more vaudeville. Electro-vaudeville. Actually that description does the job, but it was the way it was delivered. They were clearly having fun, they just as clearly know what they are doing as musicians. It was near enough to MIA played over Casio keyboards to appeal to my indie sensitivities.

Maybe I am just constantly listen to the wrong kind of stuff, but I managed to convince myself that I really hadn't heard anything exactly like it, and 48 hours later I still think the same.
And yet, if there was one thing missing, it was that Frances and the boys really are different enough to other bands, but their output, tonight at least, was all pretty similar to itself, one song to the next.

Overall, totally glad I saw them. I wasn't an instant convert, but I'll watch with real interest over the coming months.