Concorde2, 20th October 2008

The summer festival circuit is over and your album is working its way to the nether regions of the chart. What do you do next? Take one last victory lap of a tour to cash in on every last bit of success you can. Such was the scenario that brought Does It Offend You, Yeah? back to Brighton on a particularly cold and wet Monday evening.

South Central, all Brighton locals, were on just before DIOYY, yet managed to draw a decent sized crowd. With a keytar player, synths, and matching black hoodies hiding their faces, South Central are so “now” and “of the moment” that you can practically see the edgy typeface of an NME cover everywhere they move. Except…it turns out they are actually very good. They attacked the audience with such energy and immediacy that it was impossible not to be enthralled by their gritty electro. Easily getting the crowd off their feet and into the air, they came as a pleasing reminder that this genre is not tired and can still be exciting in the live arena.

After an overly long set up between bands (which, after South Central, was disappointing as the crowd was clearly buzzing), DIOYY arrived. With most of the band happy to hide behind their instruments for the set, guitar/synth man Morgan Quaintance took on duties as frontman. “Let’s Make Out”, one of the high points of the set, let him exploit this to its full extent, which in turn provided a glimmer of excitement. Bar the singles, the only other exhilaration came in the two-minute blast of life that is the album track “Attack of the 60ft Lesbian Octopus”. The entire band seemed to enjoy the short fury of the song much more than the poppier hits such as recent single “Dawn of the Dead”, which was introduced as their “S Club 7 song”. Closing the set on “We Are Rockstars”, and with no encore, DIOYY left the audience content, but with no real lasting memory. They claimed to be hungover, but it might be that they are getting sick of touring the same album, and tired of the same crowds. The only hope is that a new album might spark a bit more life or enthusiasm into what they do.

Words by Dave Drummond
Photography by Mike Turnham