Extreme Listening Mode!

As Talking Heads ‘Once In A Lifetime’ welcomes them onstage, it’s a sell-out but disparate crowd the Ting Tings have attracted to Tuts this evening. From the students at the front to the young urban professionals at the back, the place is quietly pulsing with anticipation when they take to the stage. A boy/girl combo, the set up is a reverse White Stripes comprising singer/guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino. And aided by a sampler, they make one hell of a racket. Fabulous last single ‘Great DJ’ is dispatched first, sending the crowd into a throbbing mess. On record, they have a Kraftwerkian staccato sparseness but tonight shows an unexpectedly rockist side to them. White is two parts Debbie Harry (whom she resembles) to one part Patti Smith, all glamour and verve, while De Martino is like an energetic octopus, fluidly lolloping his arms as he sings into his mic.

If you can imagine an attractive (and therefore fictional) White Stripes in thrall to the late 70′s CBGB’s scene rather than the Stones or the blues then you’re close. Each song flies by with a heart-shaking thump. White’s trebly guitar lends each song an insistent quality, and each song is about knocking a metronomic chorus into the listeners brain. And it works. It’s a joyous riot of shape and form which you can dance to. ‘Traffic Lights’ is the sole slow number, a gentle little nursery rhyme which quiets the talkative crowd into reverential silence. ‘Fruit Machine’ sounds like the Bangles ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ performed by a nutter. They close with a euphoric ‘That’s Not My Name’ (guaranteed to be rocking a festival near you soon) before encoring with the title track of their forthcoming album ‘We Started Nothing’. Well, they are wrong there. They appear to have started a very fine rock n’roll band and an interesting one at that.

Filed under: gigs Tagged: | Blondie, CBGB's, Debbie Harry, Manchester, New Wave, NME, Patti Smith, Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Ting Tings