Proud Galleries
London
Words by Josh Jones
Photos by Isabelle Mememe
Camden’s Proud Gallery, which is now quite literally a barn of a venue in the old stables of the market, hosted two fine, fine acts on Tuesday night. Among the trilby hats (why are people STILL wearing those) angular fringes, high shorts and stone washed denim, played England’s own Tim Ten Yen and French act The Teenagers.
You’ve probably heard of the latter, you should really have heard of the former. Tim Ten Yen – the sensational singing salary man appeared on stage, be-suited and accompanied only by a tiny Casio keyboard and toy cat that glowered at the crowd. He then launched into a set of such fun pop songs the audience could not help smiling to themselves, and gradually as the set went on, the grinning crowd swelled as people came out of the bar to see what was going on. Sea Anemone which is a “song about life, death, sea and earth”, MOR and upcoming single Runaround Getaround, are just pure unadulterated fun music. Tim does that to crowds – his catchy lyrics, crazy dancing and good-time beats create an oasis of fun and music in a bland sea of fashionista hype.
The Teenagers – who have now gone from a three to a five-piece, with additions on drums and keyboards, sauntered onto the stage after Mr Ten Yen to an adoring audience of, well teenagers. Within two bars of the first song, lead singer Quentin Delafon stepped over the barrier, with typical Gallic confidence and made his way into the audience, standing in amongst the crowd as he often does. You could smell the damp gussets of the vintage tights crowded round him, taking photo after photo. Scenesters checked furtively round the room to make sure it’s ok to dance like an idiot, and then let their hair fly.
The sound at Proud is a bit shit – it’s a stony old room and they hammer you with a wall of noise – so all the songs kinda blended into one – only the rousing anthem Feeling Better and the sleazy sex slur of Sunset Beach really standing out. Second album written or not, well pretty much not, the French band looked like they didn’t give a shit about anything but there and then and that they were having a fucking good time. And that’s exactly what they did. Fun-time-euro-sleazey-electro-catty-surf-synth-pop all in one evening.
