Ash & Salad 05/11/1995 Paradiso, Amsterdam
Every half year Paradiso in Amsterdam organises a London Calling festival. Programmed were Ash, Salad and 4 others I don't even find worthy to mention (okay, short then, so you know what to avoid: Huge Baby, Done Lying Down, Velo-de-Luxe and urgh.. Dodgy). Striking was the sudden amount of Shampoo influences among the audience. For the ones who don't know, Shampoo is a fucking disgrace from England, two girls who do their utmost to make the shittiest anti-music ever. Anyways, little girls were swarming around, wearing two big plaits, colorful children's clothes, and continuously licking those big lollies you get at a fair. Babes. It seemed like a kindergarten. Funny to see though.
I'll start with Ash. This trio from Ireland is responsible for some delicious loud noise. Really good to dance to. Some moments are mind boggling. However, they do have a couple of minor points. The songs are still a bit shaky, the bass guitarist fell out twice, they are too poppy for my liking, and the drummer hardly plays an interesting role in the group. But all this was well compensated by their powerful dedication, their launching fiercely at the guitars, and a good stage performance. Ash is a young band. New blood. Ash will get there.
After a break of one an a half hour Salad took the stage. The sound was much quieter and less hyper than I had expected. The songs were pretty straightforward, linear, and mostly based on rhythm, and less on melody. Paul, Pete and Rob played their parts excellent, but the eye-catcher undoubtedly was singer Marijne van der Vlugt, well known as a Dutch VJ for MTV Europe. She ruled the stage. Full of energy she moved like a tiger, sometimes screaming, grating and screeching, leaping in the air, sometimes lashing at a simple keyboard and cramming melodies out of it which were so childishly simple but nevertheless tickled your ears and legs.
The audience had a lot of fun, especially on "On A Leash". This thriller contains a rhythm to which you can dance by just walking lightly. And so the dancing part of the audience cheerily walked amongst each others acknowledging every one they met. Sometimes hell broke lose on the stage though, at which point the audience switched from lovingly walking together to jumping ferociously at each other and hurting others in the process. Besides that, the song contains a lot of staccato, on which the audience simultaneously footstomped on the bass tones as if we jumped on ice and wanted to make a hole in it. Yes, we Dutch people sure know how to have fun. :-)
Another sublime moment was "Dimished Clothes".. of course I would say. This chilling song sounded live as on the EP, not here, but somewhere far off, a fata-morgana. Totally cool. The cracker for tonight was definitely "Your Ma." This song was played disgustingly fast, and I don't even mean qua tempo, but qua the development of the song. No single moment of rest was allowed. If you wanted to keep up with the music, you had to work hard for it. Break here, break there, one second sudden pause, and boom! hitting the gas pedal full on, tiny break, and go go go, accelerate with screaming tires, etc., etc. I can't remember ever being so tired after a song. Well, maybe. After Orbital. But that was after one and a half hour of sweating my psychedelic shirt off. With Salad I got the same result in a mere 3 minutes. I was physically devastated ! And that's the way it's supposed to be, I guess...
