Dirty Pretty Things
20 Apr 2009
This past Friday night saw The Pretty Blue Guns, Farryl Purkiss and The Dirty Skirts perform at the Assembly. Things were pretty chilled with supporting bands The Pretty Blue Guns and Farryl Purkiss, in the Guns case it was due to the fact that most had not arrived at the Assembly that early on in the night in true Cape Tonian style and for Farryl Purkiss even though he seemed to have some quite intense fans his music was pretty laid back and soporific, both myself and Sindy found ourselves swaying on our feet and not in the good holding a lighter above your head kind of way but more in the ‘I'm just going to close my eyes for a few seconds wake me up if anything interesting is happening” way. Luckily something interesting did happen; headliner act the Dirty Skirts managed to wake us up and got us not only swaying in the good way but also jumping happily up and down.
The Pretty Blue Guns are Andre Leo on guitar and vocals, Brandon Visser on lead guitar, Greg Thompson on bass and Lucas Swart on drums and backing vocals. Now I was convinced that the lead and bass guitarists were brothers, even to go so far as thinking they might be identical twins but I guess not judging by their different surnames. (They are very similar looking however.) The Pretty Blue Guns sound had been described as “gritty blues rock” and it does have quite a distinctive country feel this was emphasised by the addition of a very chipper looking mandolin player.
Farryl Purkiss is very pleasant and all but I feel is more suited to a quiet and chilled venue not so much the Assembly on a Friday night when one is in the mood for grooving. Farryl was joined on stage by drummer Ross Campbell and it is to their credit that their music does not sound too sparse or flat what with being only two guys on stage but is quite layered and complex.
The Dirty Skirts got us all grooving along to songs that spanned their 4 year long music career including their first hit Little Tsunami, favourites like Feeling the Pressure and Stereo and of course ever the crowd pleaser Homewrecker.
It's always quite interesting to watch the reactions of the audience especially the hardcore fans, you know those ones you always see in such abundance at Fokof gigs. Now The Dirty Skirts might not have quite the same number of extreme fans as perhaps Fokof do but they did have at least one that we noticed, as he was standing right next to us. Seeming as if he was having quite the hallelujah moment said hardcore fan clutched his head, bowed down to the stage danced like Spiderman (as if trying to climb a wall) and screamed the loudest whenever Jeremy came to that side of the stage. I was quite worried that he might become so overwhelmed with emotion that he would pass out, luckily not. Always nice to see such passion and adoration and I must say that the Skirts certainly deserved it. Their set was tight, energetic and took us on a trip down The Dirty Skirts memory lane with stops only ever at Hitsville.
