Reviews > Gigs
CSS @ Scala, Tuesday 14th November 2006
There is no audience at a CSS gig. There is no such thing as standing and watching. Lovefoxxx is your friend. This is her party. You are her best friends and all she cares about in the whole world is that everybody smiles, everybody dances and, hopefully, everyone cops off with someone at the end of the night. This band are here to remind you that music can be fun, that it doesn't have to care. For CSS, the scene is a hopeless illusion – strip it away and all that's left is endlessly recycled riffs, bad haircuts and sixth-form poetry. For CSS, music is simply about being young, being dumb and being full of…well…you know.
Yeah that's right. CSS are that band with loads of songs about sex. They want to make love and listen to Death From Above. They want you to suck their art holes. They want you to know their music is where they want you to touch. But, and here's the best bit, even when they're talking about sex CSS don't forget that taking yourself too seriously is the only sin you might be committing. Lovefoxxx isn't Peaches. She sings about the sort of sex where if things go wrong, it's just funny. No embarrassment. Just falling about laughing and sticking another record on. CSS remember what a lot of people have forgotten. Life is about having a good time.
I have now seen this band four times in as many months. They pretty much play the same set, in the same order, every time. They pretty much always take the same positions on stage, and I've never seen Lovefoxxx without those huge yellow Reeboks. Equally consistent is the way my smile stretches from ear to ear as soon as the those first wails of feedback are uncaged, Adriano's drums kick in and everyone in the room points stageward and begins the ritual chant: C-S-S SUCKS, C-S-S SUCKS, C-S-S SUCKS until without warning those guitars hurtle themselves headlong into Patins and then latest single Alala.
In the following half an hour, Lovefoxxx spends almost as much time off stage as on it. Crowd-surfing. Marching the press trench, thrusting the mic in her adoring publics' faces. Joining the throng for a dance-off. And the rest of the band? Drummer Adriano and pouty bassist Ira, the obvious leaders of the gang, are the engine, underlining everything with a pounding rhythm clearly indebted to the more traditional sounds of their native Brazil. Ana, switching between guitar, sequencer and even harmonica, and Carolina, on guitar too, are the sultry punks at the side of the stage, while Luiza is…ah…I have such a crush on Luiza.
They end, of course, on Let's Make Love. They had to really. At this point it becomes hard to tell who is having a better time – band or fans. It really doesn't matter. Peoples faces are beginning to hurt from grinning. The final chord rings out again and again as each member tries to outdo the others with rock god poses, standing atop drum kits, spinning around on the floor, thrusting and gyrating. The lights go down. London is conquered. CSS are your new favourite band.
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