Rubberbandits at The Olympia, Dublin on October 8th 2011
Review: James Hendicott
Photos: Kieran Frost
Imagine trying to describe Rubberbandits to someone who’s – somehow – never heard Horse Outside, let alone their other diverse array of musical silliness. It’s a task I was faced with numerous times over the summer on returning to the UK, and it goes a little something like this:
Rubberbandits are these hip-hop/ rap dudes who pretend to be an extreme cliché of the working class of arguably Ireland’s poorest city, sing songs about club drugs and national celebrities being members of the IRA, and occasionally diversify by belting out a really rather sweet song about equality, where the main character is a retarded bird of prey.
That sounds either brilliant or ridiculous (in fact both probably apply), and the weirdest thing about the set-up is for all the lunacy it involves, it undeniably works. Tonight shows just why.
Having spent their UK festival sets mentioning the ‘rah’ in almost every sentence, and their largest Irish festival slot producing a mammoth parody of the priesthood, the tactic is to some extent to aim for the spot most likely to offend. With their own fans, though, that’s clearly not going to work, and, opening by making passing apologies to any mums in the crowd for using words like ‘Willie’ and ‘fanny’, the duo instead set the sarcasm factor at an all-time high, and proceed to roundly rip it out of themselves and everyone around them.
Little skits for tonight’s set include Willie O’DJ (“he’s not out father, he’s our mother’s boyfriend”) setting up an Occupy Dame Street style camp on stage in his boxer shorts, ‘Billy the no Craic trout’ having a pop at the band’s ‘fake working class Limerick accents’ from the backing visuals and a set of dancers who vary their routines from strutting the stage wrapped in police tape to doing some extremely rude horse-themed gestures whilst being ridden by bag-clad rappers.
Despite being a comedy act on the surface, the set sits astride the line between comedy and respectable musical standards, and tonight the music just about wins out. The drug theme is a particular stand out, with the big screen showing pills falling from the sky during a song about double dropping E, and ‘Bags Of Glue’ getting one of the biggest sing-a-longs of the night. The comedy was always expected, though, and it’s the sheer musical ability that’s actually more memorable. Looking beyond the fact that it takes considerable skill to sing such ludicrous lyrics without cracking up laughing, Blindboy Boatclub and Mr. Chrome have their set worked out exceptionally well, bouncing off each, powering up the key lines in a fairly authentic rap style with dual vocals and exploring the well-worn ‘finishing each other’s heftier lines’ trick that rap groups have been touting for as long as they’ve existed. It’s surprisingly technically impressive.
Of course, we forget that in a flash as soon as tracks like ‘Spastic Hawk’ kicks in, and if you think that ‘Hawawawawawk’ pronunciation is funny on video, seeing Mr Chrome do it live in a decidedly sober vocal before flapping ludicrously around the stage and collapsing for that guitar outro is still more epic. ‘Horse Outside’ closes things off with a bout of extreme ridiculousness that sees Blindboy grab a ride (in the non-slang sense of the word) atop three of his female dancers, but it’s the strength in depth offered by the likes of ‘Up the Ra’ and ‘I Wanna Fight Your Father’ combined with technical proficiency that really blow us away. The up and coming album – one we suspected we might find funny for a few days and then confine to the darker recesses of our music collection – could yet turn out to be a whole lot more.