Clapping Hands Up In The Air

It's not often that the major social event of any given week takes place on a Wednesday. Being opposed to social events in general, for me, it's not often that they take place at all. Yet, when feel-good Swedish punks the Love Is All come to town it's hard to resist not throwing on your sexiest outfit and set about painting the town spectacular! But for many days before the show, resist is what I did. I attempted to give my ticket away, and made many a pathetic excuse for not wanting to attend. However, having seen the band in Montreal last October I was well aware of their ability to lighten even the most sour of moods, and as I had been exhibiting all the cheerfulness of an over-ripe vineyard of late I eventually conceded that they just might be the shot in the arm this little grape needed.



ONE MORE TIME the boys wailed out in unison to start Talk Talk Talk Talk and so began a gloriously delightful set of toe-tapping post-punk singalongs that you have to be deaf not to enjoy. Some band a long time ago once sang something along the lines of "love is all you need". Little did they know how prophetic those words would become.
Unfortunately the indie geek meets Stephen Merchant lookalike broke his saxomaphone during the opening number, but more than made up for it with some enthusiastic percussion and keyboard playing and the odd half-arsed star-jump.

Josephine was a lot more animated and talkative than when I saw the band previous, in fact she was so ridiculously cute I doubt there was anyone in the venue who didn't go home without a crush on her.



I first discovered Love Is All through Spinning And Scratching being on the Rough Trade Indie Pop compilation, and for all their twitching post-punk energy, there is definitely something C86 about them. Several months ago Josephine interviewed Frances McKee of The Vaselines for the American magazine Under The Radar, and to add further evidence to their tweester credentials the band performed a cover of a Pastels song.

The one unfortunate thing about the band is that they only have one album worth of material to play from. They can race through such insanely awesome tracks as Busy Doing Nothing, Make Out Fall Out Make Up and Ageing Had Never Been His Friend and then the whole show is over within an hour.


After the show I was able summon up the courage to have a quick chat with Josephine. I told that I'd seen the band in Montreal and she replied "I thought I recognised you". She was probably just being polite, but my ego was a little stroked. Then we discussed the guy who supported them in Montreal - Miracle Fortress - who is completely awesome.