Poets Corner: The glamour and the chaos

Regular readers may remember that I encountered Poets Corner a few weeks ago and decided that, despite being beset by technical difficulties entirely beyond their control, they were a band worth investigating further.

And so the second encounter arrived on another cold, rain-soaked Monday night in Sheffield.

Frankly, everybody present needed something to warm the soul.

And warm it they did.

It’s good to know I wasn’t mistaken.

The Washington isn’t the largest venue in the world, but Poets Corner fill every available inch with an enormous sound. The songs swirl around the room, finding their way into every nook and cranny, while the initially reserved audience gradually abandons any pretence of standing politely and watching.

It’s still difficult to pin down exactly what Poets Corner are supposed to be. Their music is a gloriously hedonistic collision of anything that happens to wander close enough to be dragged into the fray.

Punk crashes into glam. Glam embraces pomp rock. Indie swagger gets thrown into the mixture and then everything gets turned up another notch.

The closest comparison I can muster is the chaotic, lipstick-smeared rock ’n’ roll of the New York Dolls. Although, rather wonderfully, the band tell me they’ve never actually listened to the Dolls.

They really should.

They might discover some kindred spirits.

But there’s more going on here than mere rock ’n’ roll delinquency.

Beneath the glorious chaos is a band with a surprisingly sophisticated grasp of melody and dynamics. The guitars don’t simply crash and burn; they shimmer, swoop and occasionally threaten to take flight. There’s something of early Suede about it all, back when Bernard Butler was still constructing those impossibly extravagant guitar lines and Brett Anderson was busy turning every performance into a small-scale theatrical event.

As before, it’s keyboardist and occasional frontman Oliver who immediately captures the attention.

He spends approximately half the set among the audience, pouting, prancing and pirouetting like a whirling dervish who has accidentally wandered into a glam-rock revival.

It’s an extraordinary performance, part studied theatricality, part spontaneous abandon, recalling Morrissey’s most flamboyant stage gyrations before disappearing into something altogether more unhinged.

And behind him, benefiting from a sound system that isn’t threatening to collapse under its own inadequacies, the rest of the band reveal just how powerful they can be.

The guitars slam out enormous chords. The keyboards add strange textures and unexpected flourishes. The melodies sparkle with diamonds and glitter, while the rhythm section holds the whole ridiculous enterprise together through sheer determination.

And the songs?

Ah yes. The songs.

Their latest EP gets a thorough airing, with Vendetta and Soldier On burning with an intensity that gradually draws the audience deeper into the performance.

Beats pound. Keyboards shriek. Guitars shimmer and swirl.

And then, inevitably, something breaks.

This time it’s the drum kit, which apparently decides that the middle of a Poets Corner performance would be an excellent opportunity to give up the ghost and fall over. Literally.

But it wouldn’t really be a Poets Corner gig without some unexpected outbreak of mechanical chaos.

Nobody seems particularly bothered.

The band simply carry on.

They even find time to bring the tempo down slightly for their big funky number, Violet Eyes.

Their description, not mine.

For a moment, it seems as though everybody might finally have an opportunity to catch their breath. The rhythm settles, the song finds its groove and the room begins to sway.

But Poets Corner have apparently never encountered a musical idea they couldn’t make considerably more dramatic.

The song swells towards an enormous crescendo, second frontman Cayden unleashing a torrent of screamed vocals as the guitars cascade around him, building into great walls of sound that threaten to bring the whole room down.

Second frontman.

Is that even the correct terminology? Co-frontman? Joint frontman? Does a band have two frontmen or simply twice as much front?

Papers need to be written on this.

Whatever the terminology, the combination works. Oliver provides the theatrical mischief, while Cayden brings a more visceral, almost confrontational intensity. Between them, they ensure there’s never a moment when the audience can safely look away.

And then comes Over and Over.

Their debut single closes the set, and whatever invisible barrier remained between performers and audience finally disintegrates.

Suddenly there are people everywhere.

Half the band are on the dancefloor. Half the audience appear to be heading for the rafters. Cayden bounds around the tiny stage like a man possessed, while the whole room seems to be moving to the same gloriously chaotic rhythm.

For a few minutes, The Washington feels considerably bigger than its physical dimensions ought to allow.

And then it’s over.

The guitars fall silent. The sweat begins to cool. Everybody is smiling.

Poets Corner are still a band finding their way, still discovering how to harness all that theatrical excess and musical ambition into something entirely their own.

But the ingredients are already there.

The swagger of the Dolls. The romantic extravagance of early Suede. The glorious possibility that something might fall apart at any moment.

Things finish.

This is only starting.

(I really need to improve my gig photography skills!)

Poets Corner continue to ply their trade around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I doubt they will be constrained by simple geography all that much longer.