Anders Hanson

Kosheen have been around for years, seven to be precise, and yet they only released their third album this week. But when I went to their gig at Plug last night you realise that despite the relatively small number of songs they’ve done, amongst them are some pretty brilliant tunes.

The first thing that struck me when I got there was the huge age range of the people there, but then Kosheen are a band that are difficult to pigeon-hole. Some are dance tracks, some are drum & bass, some are rock, some is electro, but what unites them all is that they are traditional songs in the sense they have a beginning, a middle and an end and a chorus that is inevitably a catchy and striking tune. I suppose that is what makes them appeal to so many people. The youngest person there was about 13 and the oldest was about 43.

The thing that really makes the gig special is Sian Evans’ powerful and distinctive voice that sounds so much better live in a dark club. They have some quite dark and industrial imagery to go with the music, and that goes really well with the tracks. Sian Evans clearly loves performing and really gets the audience dancing, particularly with older tracks like Hide U, Hungry, Suicide and All In My Head, no matter how good or bad you are at dancing. But even the tracks from the new album Damage, got people going. They might be new and less well known, but you would never have really known from the passion with which people took to them. I already loved Overkill but the song Damage was really striking, and as the first track they performed it set the tone for the night. When the night sadly ended, you then realise how many other brilliant songs Kosheen have done that weren’t performed. A thoroughly brilliant night and I am so pleased I decided to go. You definitely sensed that everyone had loved the night, whereas at previous gigs you find some people who weren’t really up for it but went anyway.

The support act was Rochelle who has a dress-sense that is a cross between Amy Winehouse and Girls Aloud, but with a voice that is closer to Gwen Stefani. The songs she did were pretty good, although they sounded more like the sort of stuff that would go down well in a club rather than being big chart hits. As much as Rochelle kept trying to generate some atmosphere and get people to dance, Plug was too empty at that point for it to work as well as it should have done. So it came as no surprise when I thought she said at the end “thank you, you’ve been a wash out”. She actually said “thank you, we’ve been Rochelle”.