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CSS played at the Coronet in Elephant and Castle last night, and I was in attendance. The crowd was a pretty varied bunch, partially owing to the genre blurring nature of their music.

CSS have come a long way in a short time, and are on a meteoric rise towards world domination. Or at least that’s the impression I had before the gig. I think it’s because the tunes are so catchy, and there is something refreshingly different about a female rock band (even though there’s one male member – if anything he adds to the camp tone, decked out as he was in the sort of summer attire a middle age man would sport at their most embarrassing).

I’d heard a few of their songs, mostly on Youtube. As I’ve previously mentioned (see post) the videos are particularly note worthy for being nothing like a ‘traditional’ pop video, and even though one is particularly violent, there is a thread of playfulness throughout. So I arrived at the gig loaded with expectations, further fuelled by internet gossip, which recounted tales of wild mosh pits and gratuitous nudity at their gigs.

Did these turn out to be true? Sadly no. Not even slightly.

The two supporting bands which preceded them were really good. Event organisers tend to select support acts based on how similar they are to the main act, which usually means the audience is primed with inferior sound-alikes. Fortunately in this case no other Brazilian girl bands were available, which meant that the support bands were selected based on their own merits. One was Metronomy, which are a borderline bizarre combination of Kraftwerk style electronic music and camp space opera antics. The other band were note worthy for their female lead who sang at a REALLY high pitch. Think Gwen Steffani on helium. She was awesome though, and was complemented by a great band.

So, the main bit of the gig. The set up was pretty laborious, even for a crack team of Santa’s little helpers. The stage was decked out in Christmas trees, and the band came on under big sheets, like ghosts at Halloween, except they had bows on.

An array of band members emerged from the colourful swathes – 6 all told, four of which touted guitars. It looked like we were in for something extreme.

The lead singer was boisterous in her skin tight, body-length work out thingy – which was adorned with a bulk of ribbons around the shoulders – making her look like a festive Spanish bull fighter. She screamed a lot, but I didn’t know what the f**k she was going on about. The only bit of clarity came at the end, when one band member asked in measured tones ‘Who won X-factor?’

Sadly I didn’t know, but I couldn’t blame her for wondering – she had bugger all to do for most of the time. The music was really reductionist, with each band member playing a small part – perhaps a few tones on a keyboard, or in one particular case smacking a stick against a drum to make a wooden ‘thunk’. The strength of their songs lies in their simplicity, but for a bevy of reasons it just didn’t come across. Firstly the lead singer’s voice was too quiet by at least a factor of ten. And the songs had been morphed to gain a more epic, anthem sound. So what emerged was scarcely recognisable as the stuff I’d heard before. I’m happy to blame this on the sound set up in the venue, which was sadly lacking. And whilst I’m bashing the venue, I may as well mention that drink prices were astronomical at £4 for a pint of Strongbow. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

So overall, even though there were memorable moments, and there was a definite party atmosphere on stage, the music failed to connect, and I felt an awkwardness for some of the band members who looked sullen and static compared to the lead singer who displayed awesome energy and crowd appeal. And her costumes were fantastic – making Beth Ditto look like a shrinking violet.

CSS are doing a few more venues in the coming months, with the same supporting acts. Watch out for them, because I still feel like they’re rising stars, but sadly they were eclipsed by sound problems in this instance.

Come on CSS!