Yay - I'm old enough! Review of Crazy P / Crazy Penis

Oooo - this is a bit new! I'm old enough, wise enough, and opinionated enough(!) that I feel qualified to write a band review. Yay! It only took 31 years.

Saturday we took a trip to see Crazy P play at Sanfu.

[A quick apology to Miss D at this point - she was due to attend with myself and Magroo but helped a friend out behind the bar on Saturday. She had a pretty rough time of it and I promised that I wouldn't rub it in... so Miss D.. stop reading now please! You were sorely missed!]

All the ingredients were wrong:

• Who the hell has heard of Crazy Penis? (Crazy P as they are known in the UK - we are too conservative!)
• The tickets hadn't sold out.
  
• Magroo was really tired.
• Miss D wasn't with us :-(
  
• Magroo was half a bottle of Jack very tired.
• It was 23.20 and I was STONE COLD sober.
• Five (the pre-club bar) wasn't busy.
• Snafu isn't a big place - 300 capacity maybe?
• Aberdeen crowds are notoriously unappreciative.
• Aberdeen dancey-types are relatively reserved when it comes to making a band feel welcome.

However - all this was rememdied and/or forgotten about thanks to our friends Mr Vodka and Mr RedBull.

In sanfu the stage is tiny. How they managed to fit all the keyboards, drum kit, guitars, etc and still allow room for the hugely endearing Dannielle Moore to dance her socks off I don't know.

After presuming I was the only person in the entire world familiar with Crazy P, I was taken aback by the noise that greeted them walking on stage. I was even more surprised when the dancefloored filled up and every chorus of every song was met with the unmistakable sound of the crowd joining in.

One thing that struck both myself and magroo was the quality of what we heard and saw. We (accidentally) managed to see Mylo and his band play 5 times over the last two years, and despite following a huge improvment in his act over that time -  Mylo isn't a patch on Crazy P. Fair point that Crazy P have been on the go for at least 7 years, but this gig just felt so Faithless-eque 'polished'. Crazy Penis sounded increadably tight and sweet - suprising in such a small venue. In fact - It was so bloody good that had we not been so close that you could witness the the guitars being plucked, you could have been mistaken for presuming it was all on backing track.

Several Budweisers were consumed. The obligatory idiot at the front sticking his fingers up was removed. And everyone settled in.

I was nervous when Dannielle announced she was going to do a slow one as this is the point at which the disrespectful tossers in a crowd usually head on mass to the bar or just heckle.. but as a true testiment to her warmth and stage presence everyone stayed and those who knew the lyrics joined in as loud as we could.

For a band used to touring European and Australian festivals it was great to see how seriously they took the night - Dannielle changed her dress half way through the act for example. The encore of their cover of You've Got The Love was as sublime as the rest of the set.

One of the many advantages of the smoking ban in Scotland is that we got a chat with some of the band members outside afterwards. I asked them why we aren't seeing more them touring the festivals in the UK... they said they have plans!

Live dance music will always be my first love. Suncreem blew me away as a kid. I've seen hundreds of live dance acts over the last 14 years - Faithless, Scissor Sisters, Mylo, Hybrid, Basement Jaxx etc. To my utter astonishment all the ingredients came together on Saturday to bring one of the best gigs I've ever seen - onlt Faithless still hold the top slot for me.

I cannot stress to anyone enough - please try to catch Crazy P and give them your support this year!!! If they are only half as good for you as they were for me on Saturday, you'll have a unforgettable night.