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The Cooper Temple Clause / Halo / Sahara Hotnights Birmingham Academy 2 - April 2002 Tonight's openers, Sahara Hotnights, are four Swedish girls with tunes and hairdos and cool clothes. The scratchy retro rock of Alright Alright (Here's My Fist Where's the Fight?) provides the highlight to the set, and they leave nearly every man in the audience with a sigh and a blush. Sadly, Halo are a clichéd, forced, unoriginal and ultimately brain-numbing band, with Muse-lite tunes and a embarrassing catalogue of 'rawk' poses. A colossal waste of record label money, Halo would only make a crowd genuinely content if they disbanded and started serving drinks behind the bar. The Cooper Temple Clause, though slightly squashed onto the Academy 2's small stage, are like a band of magicians, starting with 'Did You Miss Me' and going on to whip out track after track of their spiced up electro-tinged snarly rock, stopping by for rousing renditions of Film Maker, Been Training Dogs, Devil Walks in the Sand and new single Who Needs Enemies amongst others, before closing with the lowdown broodiness of Murder Song. Although it's completely justified to tag them as 'the Oasis it's OK to like', tonight's performance hints at greater things to come for the Coopers, and unlike Oasis themselves, a career that may well reach its artistic peak beyond their debut album. Karl Cremin |
