BMX Bandits & Cayto, West 13th, Glasgow
Posted: November 16th, 2002, by Marceline SmithI got dragged out to West 13th last week by Will to see some band called Cayto. I got there a bit late and he casually mentions that the BMX Bandits are opening. Like, the real actual BMX Bandits, reformed after god knows how many years. Blimey, was I excited. I remember seeing the BMX Bandits in Aberdeen ages ago. I’ve even got the setlist somewhere. Everyones’ soundchecking and setting up went way way over time so the BMX Bandits did their first song as a soundcheck, happily concluding that this was the first time they’d ever been applauded for soundchecking. Ahhh. Duglas was his usual sparky/funny self, telling silly anecdotes between every song and generally acting like they were playing in front of ten thousand adoring fans. They played a couple of old songs and some new ones and it was all very jolly and adorable. Apparently they’ve got a new album out soon so I hope to see them play again soon. Their leisurely pace left little time for Cayto to squeeze in their set which didn’t work out too well for them. Neither did the 4cm of space they had to move about in. I’m still in two minds about Cayto. I like them when they’re loud and crazy, when they skip through genres six times in a song but when it gets a bit Epic Radiohead I’m not so keen. And covering a Kylie song is a major faux pas when you’re following the band that wrote ‘Kylie’s Got A Crush On Us’. But Cayto are still A Good Band with interesting intriguing ideas, they’ll just never be one of my favourite bands. After that the Cranebuilders played. They were nice unassuming, understated indie pop. Kind of like Smog playing a bunch of early Creation singles. Early Creation b-sides if I want to be mean. I enjoyed them but they could have played twice as many songs or half as many and I wouldn’t really have noticed. No stage presence. BMX Bandits stole the show really.
Marceline Smith
Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.
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