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The Go! Team
The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, UK
Filter Grade: 89%
by Edward Scott | 01.01.2007

The Go! Team’s set tonight was short but very, very sweet. The Go! Team are the musical equivalent of a comic book. They are somehow full of bright vibrant colours (with a u), imagination, character, danger, action, and are people with super powers. Well alright, they don’t really have super powers, but I keep imagining massive “pow” and “bang” signs appearing every so often with the clang of a guitar strings or when a drum cymbal is pounded to a pulp. This music would be right at home being sampled on an Avalanches album.

To be fair the band is also very young. Their guitars tend to drown out the other instruments a little, and lead singer/rapper Ninja needs to stay a little closer to her microphone. I’m not sure they made full use of the second drum kit, and a longer set wouldn’t hurt. But who’s complaining? Not I.

They made it clear that they just wanted us to have fun, and they knew how to provide it. The night consisted of kickin’ instrumentals and feel-good rock songs drawn from their debut album Thunder! Lightning! Strike! and beyond. Before long the band’s fondness for the word “go” became quite clear, and suddenly their name made sense (the ! is very important). Ninja danced up a storm on stage while the other band members shared instrumental duties between the guitars, keyboards, synths, banjo, and… get ready for it... the recorder.

The set had clear highlights with "Ladyflash," "Get It Together," and "The Power Is On," and also some quirky b-sides such as "Hold Yr Terror Close." Sung by drummer Chi this song sounds like the theme for a children’s TV show, yet it fits quite nicely in the middle of their set.

So the audience moved. They danced. They waved. They jumped, and for a short time the people up front even had their arms round each other’s shoulders. Huddle formation, anyone? And everyone else, aside from the two old men beside me, were smiling. I think the old men beside me are incapable of smiling. Perhaps because they're old, perhaps they are stoic, or perhaps they didn't read enough comics as little boys.

The Go! Team are not perfect, but well worth checking out. In fact, you’d better have a good excuse not to check them out. Maybe you just don’t like fun. Or maybe you're one of the two old men in the corner. But everyone else has no excuse.