Catshanghai

The Go! Team played an energetic set at Shanghai’s Absolute House on Saturday night to a rapturous crowd of mainly international twenty somethings. I too should have left the venue in an ecstatic mood, but it passed over me like a boring daydream.

There should be a lot to like about The Go! Team. They have an enthusiastic and sassy rapper come singer called MC Ninja who was on a mission to whip up party spirit. She succeeded. The band have a collective ethos, swapping instruments at every available opportunity. They were clearly having fun, which is always good for winning over a crowd. They also have eclectic tastes embracing pop, hip hop and indie. They are set to release a cover version of Sonic Youth’s Bull in the Heather.

This is where The Go! Team started to unravel for me. Wearing your influences on your sleeve is a dangerous game when you are not as talented or creative as your musical heroes. I am all for mashing up styles and bridging the gap between pop and underground culture, but their treatment of eclecticism was just too formulaic and predictable. They start a tune with some scrawling guitar feedback and a cute syth motif before Ninja raps a bit as she urges people to ’swing their booty’ or sing ‘Do It’ in the style of the Jackson Five. It is as if I’ve been transported back in time to bad nineties indie and hip-hop music without any edge or message. I don’t know if it was the PA or the venue, but the sound was really quite rough and it didn’t gel for me at all.

I am glad The Go! Team can work a crowd, but a set of identical songs was rather boring given that I was far too sober and in no mood to swing my pants even as everyone else in the room danced with happy abandon. The Go! Team may be the darlings of Pitchfork Media as they inflitrate the UK charts, but scratch beneath the veneer and you will find a rather average English student band.

Fair play to Spli-t and Absolute House for putting on another international touring band as part of the Bacardi Sino Sessions, but this was a disappointment even if everyone else in the audience disagrees with me.

Links
Spli-t
Bacardi Sino Sessions
Absolute House
The Go! Team’s website
Pitchfork Media