The Refectory is about the shittiest venue in Leeds. Long and thin, overlooked by a walkway held up by thick concrete pillars so the kids underneath can’t see, and those forced to try and get a better view will get wedged at right angle to the stage, vaporised by stacks of wobbly speakers. But the heat, man, the heat is something else. You can see people losing weight. The Coral were due on and when the lights shone just right they caught the condensed sweat sparkling on the ceiling. People slipping around in puke, the cloud of skunk that rises at every Coral gig overpowered the body odour funk. A real endurance test and then THE CORAL body popped onstage to ‘Hammer Time’ and got stuck into the new single ‘Bill McCai’ and the menacing chant of ‘bye bye Bill’.
A lot of people have been banging on about The Coral’s genius for a long time but I reckon, for once, the hype is justified. The Coral take in a lot of stuff and somehow make it sound theirs, and in the mainstream ‘guitar’ culture, when everyone else is raping 60’s garage and 80’s new wave, this is good. They have the air off individualism, moving steadily away from their peers because one of these days, when people get sick of scowling gonks in ripped jeans, The Coral are still going to be around because they don’t follow trends. The set is split between their two albums and their new one, due in January, Skelly told us.
‘Goodbye’ has lost its 10 minute improvisational freak out in the middle, replace by psychedelic moon noise and throbbing bass. ‘Skeleton Key’ is full-tilt pirate insanity, as ever, and ‘Waiting For The Heartaches’ sounds like a twilight zone marriage of ‘Summer Lovin’ and Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’.
A lot of the stuff from ‘Magic and Medicine’ had a Country'n' Western beauty about it. ‘Liezah’ could have easily been written by the 60’s Dylan at the height of his powers whereas ‘Don’t Think You’re The First’ was a close relative of the Rawhide theme tune...yet somehow, it worked. And when ‘Dreaming Of You’ kicked off the air was filled with flying pints. I guess this is testimony to The Coral’s depth of song writing to be able to go from acid stomping Pirate chant to fragile desert music box hush to blockbusting, chart assaulting crowd pleasers.
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The new stuff was a different breed. Skelly roars ‘I can see through you’ repeatedly through a megaphone on ‘I Forgot My Name’ while the others go mental, breaking down into a nuts psychedelic jam, some kind of soundtrack to a 1960’s ‘Teenage Dope Fiend Sex Orgy’ B-movie. Last song ‘Migraine’ carried on where ‘I Forgot...’ left off. The Coral let go completely, hammering drums, feedback squall, electronics backfiring – full bore noise, brutal strobe’s and when the tech finally pulled the plug The Coral were gone.
Somehow, I’ve managed to see The Coral about four times without actually making a conscious decision to go. I just end up at the gigs through circumstance and each time I’ve seen them they’ve got better and better. Like I said above, there’s nothing to stop them from being huge, all it takes is an open mind because their star is defiantly on the rise and they’re starting to twist a serious amount of heads. Hokum Clones back in support next time though.
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