Mindless Self Indulgence, Astoria, London UK, April 20, 2008

While MSI don’t specifically aim to cater for a certain age group, the way they articulate teenage attitudes and insecurities allows them to make an almost mystical bond with the psyche of their audience. Realising this perfectly and exploiting this connection to the full, Urine onstage assumes a persona of a bona fide 15 year-old buzzing on sugar – hyperactive, capricious, craving attention, and generally easily provoked into angry outbursts by any displays of glamour or success, targets of his wrath ranging from Jimmy Page to “creative motherfuckers making all-original masterpieces of shit”. The clever part of this act is in that although Urine is disguised as a buffoon, he still manages to drive home some poignant truths about music industry’s obsessions projected through teenage anxieties. The band’s exit tune tonight, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, while making a gleeful mockery of MSI’s own occupation and pointing towards twisted contradictions at the centre of the industry, was the most appropriate way to end the show as well as to prove yet again that “Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow”.

		MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE ASTORIA LONDON, UK APRIL 20, 2008 review & photos by Alissa Ordabai
		LINKS: myspace.com/mindlessselfindulgence
Currently on a world tour supporting their new album If, which came out this week, Mindless Self Indulgence are now attracting bigger crowds than ever before in every city they go through. Having played a 800-capactiy club in North London last year, this time around they have sold out Astoria, a legendary 2,000-seater located right in the middle of London.
Already by lunchtime on the day of MSI’s London show, teenagers clad in cartoonish outfits mixing punk, goth, and Barbie doll styles with primary colours of pink and black, had invaded the streets surrounding the venue. The average age of an MSI fan being 15, it was easy to see why a combination of nursery colours and dark tones that the band trumpets on this tour was found so irresistibly attractive by half-children, half-adults, alongside the way they get hooked on the mixture of pop and punk the band’s music so shrewdly combines. And this desire to rebel, but at the same time be comforted by reassuringly simple poppy melodies and straightforward beats, was satisfied just perfectly on the night.
Teenage curfews forcing the entire event start early, MSI came on stage at half eight soon after a rather spectacular set of their only support band, Robots in Disguise. The opener, “Shut Me Up”, got the crowd jumping and raising their hands right off the bat to a catchy mixture of punk and industrial driven by a killer dance beat. Those who haven’t seen MSI live before and assumed that the band’s mockery of the rock star cult would make them reluctant to engage in a professional stage performance, were proven very wrong, because while MSI scoff at show biz, they themselves put up a blistering show that shames the best-selling live acts of today. Singer Jimmy Urine was jumping around the stage and twisting himself in all imaginable poses like a man truly driven, and bassist Lyn-Z’s deliberately mannered onstage gymnastics was drawing some of the loudest cheers from the crowd.
	Showcasing nine tracks from the new album during their set, the band revealed how their stylistic horizons have now expanded even more, with “Mastermind” leaning heavily into hip-hop beats, and “Lights Out” sprawling over a variety of styles with industrial rhythms layered with a killer rock riff and pop hooks, its gaudiness at times edging on flamboyant Broadway extravaganza. A melting pot of punk, industrial, pop and electronica, MSI still come through as a very focused act, with each instrument firmly in its place - without any overspills or attempts to stray away from the prescribed procedure. And although stylistically MSI have thrown lots of wild cards into the deck, the end result is a linear and precisely directed sonic universe. Even their apparent onstage nuttiness at times appears carefully thought-through, more deliberate and purposeful as it begins to pay off by bringing in bigger crowds.
During “Stupid MF” Urine was pulling his trousers down and stroking himself with a mic, inviting the audience to insult him before the band launched into the song. In MSI’s world rock stars are there to be abused, and Urine willingly lends himself to name-calling he believes is automatically deserved by anyone who finds himself on stage in front of a crowd. One of the photographers in the photo pit was encouraged to stop shooting the band, to climb on stage and begin taking photographs of the audience, which he willingly did, getting a thunderous response from the crowd.
Always stylistic scavengers, towards the end of the show MSI surprised yet again with the way they cooked up a new brand of stylistic stew on another number from the new album - “Evening Wear”, which cunningly fused playground harmonies with techno rhythms and vaudeville-inspired vocals. But their blend of styles is always so seamless that not only the particular influences don’t stand out, but neither do the individual instruments. Steve’s guitar, remaining level with the bass and the drums, never surged to the fore, on this track and throughout the show. This focus on a group sound as opposed to highlighting personal chops is a part of the band’s ethos that denies the notion of a star, and for them it works perfectly, turning their songs into fluently coherent numbers.
While MSI don’t specifically aim to cater for a certain age group, the way they articulate teenage attitudes and insecurities allows them to make an almost mystical bond with the psyche of their audience. Realising this perfectly and exploiting this connection to the full, Urine onstage assumes a persona of a bona fide 15 year-old buzzing on sugar – hyperactive, capricious, craving attention, and generally easily provoked into angry outbursts by any displays of glamour or success, targets of his wrath ranging from Jimmy Page to “creative motherfuckers making all-original masterpieces of shit”. The clever part of this act is in that although Urine is disguised as a buffoon, he still manages to drive home some poignant truths about music industry’s obsessions projected through teenage anxieties. The band’s exit tune tonight, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, while making a gleeful mockery of MSI’s own occupation and pointing towards twisted contradictions at the centre of the industry, was the most appropriate way to end the show as well as to prove yet again that “Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow”.