8 - Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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The French Kicks played a lackluster show for a lackluster turnout.
Didn't get your.'Kicks'?
INDIE GROUP STRUGGLES WITH COHERENT LIVE ACT
By DEVIKA DAGA
Daily Arts Writer
You've probably never heard of the French
Kicks, and neither has America. They've occa-
sionally been mentioned
in passing in the same French Kicks
breath as The Strokes and
The Libertines. They're Sunday
pillars of the rock renais- At The Blind Pig
sance - kind of. They're
quite an exciting indie band, if you're into that
scene, raising hairs and eyebrows and taking
the country by storm - if they can get away
with it.
The French Kicks, in other words, are tee-
tering on the edge of fame. Their last album,
Two Thousand, sold twice as many copies as
their sophomore release, Trial of the Century.
The press, however, remains ambivalent, and
with decent but not astounding record sales,
the Kicks can only try to entice a following live
on stage.
Sunday night at The Blind Pig, though, the
band left much to be desired. If they set out
to seduce an audience, their performance was
alarmingly cold.
Leading the charge onstage without so much
as a "Heyhowzitgoing," the lanky Nick Stumpf fuel a performance, and by mid-set, the Kicks
looked the part of a frontman, decked out in had fallen into something of a rut, playing the
Chucks and a sly grin. His slack-jawed vocal part of a drained touring act to a tee. Indeed,
stylings buried deep in the mix, he slurred his the band's inability to excite the audience - or
words, singing like he was constantly sucking draw in a crowd, period - speaks volumes
back streams of drool into his mouth. With to their continued status as a fledgling indie
his head tilted back and spine straightened at band.
attention, Stumpf looked like a less-soused ver- Of their last three headlining shows, the
sion of Robert Pollard and was by far the focal Kicks haven't managed to bring in more than
point of the performance. 40 people - and according to many concertgo-
As a whole, the Kicks' arrangements were ers, their performances have been disappoint-
tight and allowed to loosen in places, and yet ing to say the least.
there were very few moments that added to At The Blind Pig, for example, the crowd was
the prowess of their studio recordings. Espe- left stunned when the band abruptly ended
cially with stronger tracks like "Knee High" their show out of what seemed to be sheer
and "The Falls," it would have been nice to frustration: With a final strum of the guitar,
see those guys stretch out a little more and see Strumpf said goodbye, lights went out and the
where they could take these tunes. Instead, audience exited - perhaps all too quickly.
most renditions were far too faithful and the But on tour with OK Go!, the band has man-
set lacked variety. aged to pull in a following, but probably by
The only true swerve of the Kicks' perfor- default.
mance was the guitar histrionics of Josh Wise. Sans encore and tres blase, the Kicks' per-
While his detached demeanor made him seem formance Sunday night did nothing more than
less like The Edge and more like a member of reassert their middling status.
the custodial staff, there's no denying the influ- Perhaps the frigid Michigan air left the band
ence when he laid on the reverb and the drama stiff come time to perform, but unfortunately
in "Cloche." excuses are of no merit when a reputation is at
Still, it takes more than a few dapper licks to stake.
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