TO say there's 'audience participation' at the RepoMen gig tonight would be a colossal understatement. In the intimate space of The Grapes, the post-punk group certainly put the talents of the audience to the test.
And frontman Denzil Watson requires no warming up – from the first notes of set opener Dietrich he's leaping around stage. By mid-song Watson's into the crowd. Tthe effect is great and the soundis punchy, bold and engaging.
Tonight's clincher is t
he fuzzy, furious, Trophy, for which Screaming Mimi's Loretta joins on stage. Though Watson doesn't stop recruiting there: "Anyone fancy coming up to play tambourine?" he asks, and soon an unsuspecting chap is brought on the set.
"Do you fancy coming up and playing the Tunes?" he asks another member of the audience, while shaking a box of throat lozenges. Within seconds the stage is packed with Tunes shakers, tambourine shakers, singers and guitarists. Lorretta's vocals give depth to the fast ditty with the Tunes adding charm.
The band rounds up the set with Parallel Schizo, for which Watson wanders into the gentlemen's toilet singing. Guitarist Ric Bower moves into the crowd, handing his electric guitar over to a bespectacled man who closes the show with frenzied strumming. Swathes of twiddles, feedback, frantic strumming and manic drums ends what will be a benchmark of audience participation, that is, a RepoMen gig.
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