IAMX
Sohodolls
King's College, London
Monday November 26 2007

Distressed glamour, fops and flaneurs. Rakes and rockers, bohemians and punkers. IAMX haven't yet played a note, but I'll tell you this: their audience is worth the price of admission in itself. London's left-field glamsters have decanted themselves en masse into the King's College student union bar for what many seem to regard as the gig of the year. IAMX may not be a household name (in fact it's not even clear how you pronounce their name) but if we're talking cult followings, they're definitely top of the charts. By all accounts Chris Corner, the man who in all essential respects is IAMX, regards his band as something of a theatrical project, rather than a musical snapshot of reality. His songs, little vingettes of sex, sleaze and parties that get out of hand, describe a world very far from the actual life he lives. Well, that may be so, but nevertheless there are plenty of people who seem to identify with the enticingly glamourous weirdo-a-go-go milieu he creates in his music. Maybe they even live the life. They've certainly turned out in force to see the man who creates the soundtrack.

The Sohodolls aren't doing too badly, either. They've got quite a fanbase of their own these days - a sizeable proportion of tonight's crowd appears to be here to see them, and fair few people out of that sizeable proportion are down the front, singing along. When a band reaches the 'get 'em down the front, singing along' stage of the game, you know things are going well. The Sohodolls are an easy band to like: they've got a certain glam swagger, and some robust Hanoi Rocks-style guitar lines. But they've also got the lightness of touch that goes with a genuine pop sensibility - for all the glam rocky elements, the Sohodolls are unequivocably a pop group, and for all their bad-ass bump and grind you just know they're all really nice people. When vocalist Maya encourages us all to 'Trash it! Trash it! Trash it!' in 'Trash The Rental' you just know she'd never contemplate such irresponsibility. If she rented a car, she'd probably spend all day polishing it and dusting the interior with air freshener before taking it back. 'Bang Bang Bang Bang' takes off into an almost dubwise coda - an unexpected musical diversion, and actually rather good - while 'Stripper' brings things to a big finish with its clattering Glitter Band beat, and a sudden burlesque dance routine from special guest Miss Vicky Butterfly, complete with gossamer wings.

His face half hidden beneath a kepi, and with a ruff round his neck, Chris Corner cuts a paradoxically reticent figure. His costume - part glam rock gendarme, part elizabethan park keeper - seems designed to form a barrier between himself and his audience, ensuring that we can't really see him. Maybe that's all part of the concept: a way of underlining that what we're getting here is a character, rather than the man himself laying his own soul bare. Not that anyone here tonight is inclined to ponder such arcane matters. The rakes and rockers, bohemians and punkers just wanna rock.

And sho' nuff they do, for IAMX instantly provides them with an eminently suitable punchy, thumping, and exhilaratingly grandiloquent strut. It's far heavier and more guitar-driven than you might expect. On stage, IAMX are unashamedly a rock band. Flanked by a male guitarist, shirt off in the approved rock 'n' roll journeyman style, and a female keyboard player in a kind of school-disco-meets-Torture-Garden yellow PVC ensemble (fashion note: kipper ties are back, folks), and with a drummer skewed sideways at the back, Chris Corner throws shapes, throws his head back, and gives us his sequin-encrusted bedsitter poet, every song a little slice of high drama and low life. 'With your skin vision/and your leatherette eyes/you make me come/we glitter in the gutter' he sings, in 'Skin Vision'. It's a bold lyricist who can juxtapose 'glitter' and 'gutter' so shamelessly (to say nothing of 'Leatherette eyes', a line Brian Molko must be kicking himself for not thinking of first) but if you're looking for a swift summation of the IAMX world, that's it right there.

There's a change of hats - in comes a glittery trilby, for that glam-mod look - and the show reaches an emotional climax, as the rakes and rockers cheer their hero to the finish. It may be theatre, but to this crowd it means a lot. There'll be plenty of glitter in the gutters of London tonight.

Essential links:

IAMX: Website | MySpace
Sohodolls: Website | MySpace

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