CityLife Rating
The Ting Tings
IN October 2007, the Ting Tings had just launched their second single, Fruit Machine, with a gig at Salford’s Islington Mill, surrounded by little more than high hopes and fridges full of warm beer.
Tonight, that same track, embellished with the blazing horns of a freshly acquired brass section, evidences an evolution in the band so comprehensive it would dumbfound Darwin.
Back then, the duo were a shaky proposition, hanging songs more off Katie White’s mesmeric stage presence than any hooks they may have had.
Now, she and Jules De Martino fill the Apollo with a riotously robust racket, raining down two-piece cacophony like a fun version of the White Stripes.
Expansive sound
Each song is given a festival-tastic coda, befitting of their newly expansive sound.
The stage resembles the aftermath of a particularly free-spirited music lesson.
Kick drums, samplers and guitars litter the place, all under the masterful control of De Martino, who, as he simultaneously strums, sings and drums his way through Great DJ, resembles a sort of one-man band for the Skins generation.
The sugar-fuelled daydreams of A-Level art students (the band asked fans to submit visuals to their MySpace for use on the tour) flicker by on huge screens surrounding the stage, the big-budget realisation of the Mill’s paint-splattered walls.
Absence of new materials
For some songs, White and De Martino are joined by a troupe of neon-coiffed backing musicians, whose regimented playing evokes a nu-pop appropriation of Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love video.
A conspicuous absence of new material is battered into insignificance by triumphant, singalong renditions of hits including Shut Up And Let Me Go and That’s Not My Name, the latter of which inspires near-religious shape-throwing in the crowd.
The next stage in the Ting Tings’ life cycle will be interesting to observe, with how they adapt holding the key to their survival.
Reviewed: Fri, 27 February, 2009
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