Institute of Contemporary Arts

DAY THIRTEEN: Athlete and Tiny Dancers

Date: 13 July 2007

Joel, Athlete

Tiny Dancers and Athlete were a pleasure to behold both in vision and sound on Friday, exuding team spirits quintessential to all the best bands. David from Tiny Dancers and Joel from Athlete are no doubt exceptionally talented front men, and not without their own particular groove, but they seemed totally united with their fellow band members and the warmth they showed for each other seemed to ripple over the crowds.

Tiny Dancers are put simply, a scrumptious band. Returning to the ICA after a headlining gig back in April, the audience lapped up their honky tonk rock and roll sound illustrated in happy little songs like Hannah We Know and Bonfire Night. When David came to the stage he announced that since the last time he was there the band have sung with The Flaming Lips, they’ve played at Glastonbury and have travelled far and wide on tour. He continued ‘but by far the best thing has been receiving our fee iPods.’ Now, of course this was said with much humour but when someone called out, “You’ve really made it now!’ there was some truth to the statement. The iPods given to all the artists playing the festival are a tangible reflection of their place in an elite group of musicians chosen to represent what’s best in music today. Tiny Dancers seemed genuinely pleased about this, and everyone was excited about the set they played. They introduced all their tunes including Shame, Baby Love and Ashes and Diamonds, their new single to be released in September. Their rock and roll sound, less epic than the Editors and Arcade Fires of this world, is on more of a country gig tip than Wembley Stadium, so it fitted perfectly into the small intimate setting. People were happily singing and clapping along, smiling faces enjoying the vibe. This is a band you would like to see passing through your picnic when out in the countryside and they certainly instilled some good summer feeling into what has been a month of miserable weather. Calling themselves Tiny Dancers because theirs is an organic, unfussy sound we were hooked by the simple set of songs delivered with flair from the dazzling David.

Then we had Athlete. Well, I’m not afraid to say it, Athlete are a sexy band, playing sexy music. I mean to say, handsome front man Joel starts by saying, 'Blimey it’s hot in here, maybe not as hot as Dirty South’s’ and all the talk of heat had me hot under the collar already. Cleverly he moved into the song You got the style with it’s lyrics  ‘Oh it’s getting hot in here, must be something in the atmosphere’ and I was like, hmm, musical and clever. Joel’s cool demeanor and smart chat had the crowds totally engaged and I was impressed by the rapport he had with the audience. At one stage he went to start a song but the guitar wasn’t working so cried out, ‘hold I hold it, we can’t be having that, this is the iTunes festival’. His relaxed nature was relaxing everyone else in turn. He nearly had the crowds singing happy birthday to his manager at one point, and even though in the end he changed his mind, 'well best not actually, this is going out live on radio -  we don’t want to completely embarrass ourselves’ he certainly had the audience in his palm. And the lack of a Happy Birthday chorus was more than made up for with the continuous singing of the crowd over nearly every chorus… classics like Wires and Shake Those Windows were being belted at full tilt. The crowds seemed ecstatic throughout the whole set, lapping up new release The Outsiders (which everyone knew already, obviously) and cheering and whooping for the last two encore tracks Tokyo and 24hours.  By the end I knew the bend well, literally because of the introduction to all members of the band, the new guitarist Jonny getting a super special shout out, and spiritually through their music (these are good Christian boys after all), that had saturated into my skin. I was left wanting more of the steady lubricious beats with their offbeat and varied edge.

I did manage to concentrate on my camera for some of the night you’ll be pleased to hear, so please venture forth to the gallery for a peek at all the shots from the night, as well as a superb picture of all the Tiny Dancers packing up outside. I wondered how they came out with that one so quickly, within the blink of an eye. Good skills; good times all round.


Torie Speyer