Covenant
Client
Mechanical Cabaret
Electric Ballroom, London
Sunday October 7 2007

Well, this is a bit of an improvement on last time. When I last set foot inside the Electric Ballroom - for the Front Line Assembly show back in July - I was a little taken aback to discover a somewhat under-attended gig. This time, the crowd is significantly bigger, and there's definitely more of a sense of anticipation in the air. Covenant, it seems, are hot property - or at least a bit warmer than Front Line Assembly. Old-skool industrialists nil, besuited synthpoppers one.

But here's one thing tonight's show has in common with that FLA gig: Mechanical Cabaret in a support slot. I recall that I remarked in my FLA review that Mechanical Cabaret seem to have become London's all-purpose support band, and as if to illustrate my point, here they are again. What's more, they've now moved down one place to the opening slot. If this was the Top Of The Pops chart run-down, Jimmy Savile would turn to the camera at this point and make a lemon-sucking face. I suppose you could say that any gig is a good gig, but in my view it's essential for bands to be seen to be moving up, rather than oscillating between first-band-on and second-band-on, which seems to be Mechanical Cabaret's lot in life. Still, they rinse out their amiable eightes-ish sleazoid synthpop with the usual gung-ho charm, frontman Roi leaning out over the crowd and giving us a selection of saucy rock star poses as the rhythms thump and electronics blip. Not bad stuff, but is it good enough to move up? An awkward question, but maybe it's time to ask it.

Client are dipping in to London tonight as a stop-off on what appears to be their never-ending European tour. Curiously, while Client are big news with the schwarze scenesters and electrogoths in the greater Europe, here in the UK they've always had an indie-ish following, which makes this gig a bit of a departure for the band. Client's natural habitat in the UK is surely a supercool Shoreditch club, playing to a crowd of hipsters with assymetrical hairstyles. But tonight they're in front of a typical Camden audience - every third person is decked out in hair extensions and New Rock boots, and everyone is wearing black. New territory in their home town - I do love the smell of irony in the evening.

So, here we go: Client's slinky-but-punchy electro sashays out of the PA, every song rolling along on a rhythmic catwalk strut, while the band exude an insouciant supermodel confidence. Client couldn't be cooler if you dropped ice cubes down their necks, but, endearingly, they can't help breaking into goofy grins as they vogue from pose to pose. In this, Client reveal their essential Englishness - that almost pathological tendency to inject some self-deprecating send-up juice into situations where others might remain grimly serious. Maybe this is why Client are big in Germany: you wouldn't get those goofy grins from a German band. You probably wouldn't get a bona fide punk rock cover, either, but Client make Adam Ant's 'Xerox Machine' an instant electro classic. That's Client for you: they might crack a few smiles, but they never crack their cool.

Three men and a light show. That's Covenant. Tonight, one of the three men turns out to be Daniel Myer of Haujobb, lurking unobtrusively behind a bank of technology, once in a while leaning over and tweaking a knob. With, incidentally, no discernable effect on the sound, from which we can infer that, just possibly, not quite everything we're hearing tonight is live. Over there, somewhere in the rock star fog, Joakim Montelius maintains his usual position behind his keyboard. And in the middle, all suit and cheekbones, please welcome Covenant's elegant frontman, every inch the Bryan Ferry of synthpop, Eskil Simonsson. The visuals are crisp, the lighting dramatic, and every song is an anthem, stuffed with insistent beats and towering crescendos. Covenant know exactly how to get an audience moving, exactly how to rack things up to that hands-in-the-air moment.

But there's also a touch of pathos to their style. At times, Eskil assumes an air of downbeat introspection, stepping back and falling into a curiously resigned pose - at these moments, in his shirt and tie combo he looks like an office administrator who's just been asked to clear his desk. If these interludes are an attempt to inject a little light and shade into what would otherwise be a full-on rampage through a succession of club hits, it works. But, for the most part, the rampage never stops. Upbeat floor-fillers stack up relentlessly, and the audience's appreciation knows no bounds. Rather touchingly, Eskil appears genuinely moved by the cheering and applause. Covenant may have their groovy club electro anthems off to a fine art, but it's nice to know they don't take it for granted.

Essential links:

Covenant:
Website | MySpace
Client:
Website | MySpace
Mechanical Cabaret:
Website | MySpace

For more photos from this gig, find the bands by name
here.