On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

Gomez
September 23, 1999
Opera House, Toronto

By all rights, they shouldn't be here: They're the misfits from the back of the class who got in trouble for writing lyrics in class and scrawling band names into their desks; they're the campus pub battle-of-the-bands runners-up, talented but too idiosyncratic to catch on. Somehow, though, these young lads from the north of England have burst through radio barriers without compromising their ideals.

That's not to say that Gomez are out to change the face of music, or to cancel Third World debts. Rather, they're determined to throw their musical influences into a cracked melting pot, stirring and serving with a healthy dose of backbeat - and having a damned good time while they're at it. Think of Grateful Dead edited down and crossed with The Charlatans, and you've got a good idea of their rootsy appeal. Still, it's hard to imagine either of those bands breaking out a vocoder in the midst of a prog-blues jam ("Devil Will Ride"), or delivering a rather faithful cover of M.A.R.R.S.' "Pump Up the Volume" in mid-set.

However you characterize them, Gomez are a very good band on CD, and a great band live. With their usual five-piece lineup expanded by a percussionist, and Ollie Peacock's dexterous drumming way louder in the mix, they achieve a groove and an intensity they've yet to harness in the studio. What's more, the response at the Opera House to their poppier tunes (particularly those from their first album, BRING IT ON) suggests they're developing a following on this side of the Atlantic, which can only be enhanced as they tour.

The show wasn't perfect, however: Gomez aren't always the tightest band in the world; as well, some of their slower, moodier songs induced a little too much of a lull in the proceedings. Still, there were many highlights, usually involving some raucous grooves and the great, throaty growls of Ben Ottewell, one of three lead singers. Ottewell may look like an intern at an accounting firm, but he sounds as if he's been weaned on Jack Daniels and Marlboroughs from the womb. He's just one of the band's numerous contradictions -- hell, it's hard to imagine another band that would be equally at home playing to a sea of blissful neo-hippies or rocking a frat party.

Considering the band members are still in their early twenties, there seems to be little limit to their potential. Maybe they'll end up recording that triple-concept album they seem to have in them -- the one about the poor young English musician hitch-hiking his way through California and subsisting entirely on a diet of Kraft Dinner and pot. Whatever the future holds for Gomez, we should be glad that they're here now. Pigeonholing and Rock Radio be damned: The underdogs, for once, are fighting a winning battle.