The Dandy Warhols have taken the long-standing route of those alternative bands who, having taken the major label dollar and then found themselves dropped for not selling enough, decide to really stick to The Man by self-releasing their new album.

This is definitely not akin to vanity publishing, and their gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire was definitely not a fading band going through the motions while they’ve still a loyal fanbase to squeeze. Nope.

From the backdrop (Look! A VW van and a dope leaf under that American eagle! Crazy!), to the piped excited-crowd noise during the warm-up tunes, it all boded ill.

The first problem is that Courtney Taylor-Taylor can’t really sing anymore. He can just about keep his standard vocals together, but at the first sign of strain or change in pitch, it goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Quite literally honking his way through the “ba da ba’s” of ‘Godless’, just yelping the falsetto in ‘We Used To Be Friends’ and in aiming for a rough and ready style for ‘Get Off’, he ended up sore and strained. God help them if someone doesn’t invite them onto the inevitable late 90s nostalgia tour in a decade.

Richard Davie
Pic: Rachel Lipsitz