For one night only, Squeeze transformed KOKO into Trixies, the mythical club that founding band members, Chris Difford (guitar, vocals) and Glenn Tilbrook (lead guitar, vocals), concocted when they were only 19 and 16-years-old respectively. The club forms the name of and concept behind their newly released 16th studio album, ‘Trixies’, their earliest songwriting material released more than 50 years on.
With a jazz club vibe set amongst tables and chairs, the album launch night was made up of two sets, with the band playing the new release in its entirety in track order in the first half. After an electrically charged flickering sound emitted from the neon ‘Trixies’ sign up on the wall behind the stage, Trixies began the proceedings on first track ‘What More Can I Say’, its pastel shades of dreamlike guitar perfectly entwined with Tilbrook’s vocals. Then the gentle acoustic guitars and harmony of ‘You Get the Feeling’ were accompanied by a 1920s-style Betty Boop masked dancer wearing a jewelled rah-rah dress.
They moved onto one of the more standout songs on the release with ‘The Place We Call Mars’; Bowie inspired, it saw both Difford and Tilbrook singing together with a background of alien keyboards (slightly amiss in volume) and pedalled chord progression guitar from Tilbrook’s son Leon (guitar, backing vocals), the newest addition to the 9-piece lineup. The keyboards were successfully annunciated for Difford’s ‘The Dancer’, with Stephen Large’s grandeur organs telling the dark tale inspired by the Velvet Underground, whipped into a frenzy by tempestuous percussion and noise feedback.
One of the album’s best songs, ‘Why Don’t You’, carried an addictive rockabilly drive with Steve Smith (percussion, vocals) and Simon Hanson’s (drums) double percussion amongst Melvin Duffy’s pedal steel guitar sounding even more lifted than on the record; they were joined by two cabaret dancers who starred in the music video, although not enough spotlight was granted them on the ground level under the stage. Difford’s own song, ‘It’s Over’, was sung audaciously solo by him alongside Tilbrook’s fretwork irregularities and wah-wah bends; the latter could have been even more trippy as on the recorded version. The band then headed into ‘The Jaguars’, with frantic sliding combs of pedal steel. Squeeze closed this set on the two interlocking parts of final tributing tracks ‘Trixies’, with the swing of ‘Part Two’ seeing the dancers come back.
The band returned after an interval for a second set of their classics, including many of their hits and well known charms. Opening on 1980’s ‘Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)’, with its rounded acoustic percussive beats, they also played the Kinksesque ‘Up the Junction’ and the soulful ‘Tempted’ with a guitar solo, while Difford sang the baggy 1979 chart-topper ‘Cool for Cats’, featuring a psychedelic interlude. The band finished the night on their 1978 debut single, ‘Take Me I’m Yours’, with armalite beats and Tilbrook’s spiny guitar solo, breaking in the middle for band introductions and a cover excerpt of Donovan’s ‘Mellow Yellow’ sung by backing vocalist Danica Dora. The smoothest album and show of the year so far with more UK dates to come later in the year.
Photos © Peter Tainsh.
© Ayisha Khan.