Friday 30/09/05 The Rakes, Louis XIV @ Carling Academy, Liverpool

Due up first are Five O’ Clock Heroes but, with nearly an hour passed after their allotted slot, it’s clear they’re not gonna show. Maybe they’re only as good as their name suggests: perhaps their magic powers begin to wane as the hour of five fades into the dark of evening? Well, the reality is a little bit more worrying as it turns out they have been involved in some kind of motor accident en route. We’re oblivious to this however as the Filthy Dukes rock the kids with the current indie disco favourites, and no sooner have the final strains of AC/DC singed their fringes than have San Diego sleaze-peddlers Louis XIV claimed the stage intent on ****ing every girl here from the freshers to the fleshier. 

They’re so derivative it should be depressing - the reason it isn’t, and why they’re such a great band to see live is that the artists they choose to ape so shamelessly are, well, Rock ‘n’ Roll Divinity. Therefore we get Jason Hill, a front-man bred from the mixed DNA of Ozzy and Iggy, songs that owe everything to the earth-tearing riffage of AC/DC (‘God Killed The Queen’), the filthy mouth of said Mr Pop (‘Pledge Of Allegiance’), and the prancing pretty-boy swing of Marc Bolan (‘Metal Guru’… er, sorry – ‘A Letter To Dominique’). They even treat us to a rare playing of yanky doodling instrumental ‘The Hunt’. Finishing on new single ‘Finding Out True Love is Blind’, in which the lyrical list of sexual targets suggests Henry VIII may have been a more befitting name for the band, they are rewarded with a chant for the new king from the heaving floor.

And so on to The Rakes’ progress. Whether it be the influx of students into the city, the added draw of Louis XIV or simply the release of their brilliant debut album, there is undoubtedly a hungrier, more expectant, and without doubt bigger crowd here than the Londoners have played to in this city previously. And my how they’ve come on: The Rakes are a band really at ease with their art and, refreshingly, with their audience – there’s a definite kinship between stage and those gathered; perhaps as much a result of their witty articulations of the humdrum and the immediate as it is of the charm of frontman Alan Donohoe. As with Hard-Fi, The Streets, Kaiser Chiefs and The Ordinary Boys, theirs is an everyman aesthetic that celebrates the routine yet briefly liberating rewards we get for our daily toils ("Everything is temporary these days/Might as well go out for the third night in a row", ‘Retreat’), though not everything is delivered with such a wry smile: opener ‘Terror!’ and the Specials-meets-Pistols ASBO rush of ‘Violent’ are two of the hardest-hitting tracks tonight.

Some big-and-clever stage lighting leads Gigwise to ponder if Alan’s Ian Curtis-meets-Shaggy dance moves are his guess at how the Joy Division frontman may actually have moved when confronted with a load of strobes going off. When set closer ‘Strasbourg’ – basically ‘Popscene’ played by The Strokes – leaves the rest of us similarly sweating and breathless, it’s clear that in a year or two’s time we’ll be glad that we saw them at such close quarters. A blistering encore of ‘Ausland Mission’ and re-released single ’22 Grand Job’ sees the wedge-and-drainpipes foursome escape the club to join Louis XIV and the punters on the dance-floor at a certain ever-popular local indie night.    

Photo by Linda Chasteau