Gig review: Iglu&Hartly

Published on Tuesday 2 December 2008 18:53

IGLU & HARTLY LIQUID ROOM, EDINBURGH

IT'S possible to find the goofy, mutton-headed verve with which garishly named Californian outfit Iglu & Hartly approach their business mildly endearing – at least at first.

However, by the time the long-haired, shirts-off, surf-bum-esque coterie had invited their third audience member on stage for a bit of frat-boy fun that verged on ritual humiliation, the feeling had long since faded.

Admittedly, you could hang a coat on some of their choral hooks – particularly the one belonging to what's destined to be their lone hit, In This City – but the tedious lyrics, bland rapping styles and goonish, over-excited pogoing of their singers Jarvis Anderson and Sam Martin grate against all notions of taste. Speaking of bad taste, at one point they invited a young woman on stage and serenaded her with an anticlimactic ballad called Out There, seemingly blind to the difference between "romantic" and "sleazy".

Another girl was inexplicably coerced into eating a whole bag of baby carrots, while a guy named Jimmy accepted the dare to swallow a whole muffin in three bites.

At least he had the effrontery to do it in two and then dive back into the crowd before Anderson could babble any further.

Who knows, maybe this bunch will soundtrack a Hollywood teen comedy and go on to become the new Red Hot Chili Peppers, but most of their young audience will probably file them under "I can't believe I used to like them" when they're older. Or perhaps "I can't believe I ate that bag of carrots when they told me to".