Gig review: Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly

IT makes sense that Sam Duckworth, alias laptop-folk musician Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, once made a guest appearance on Hollyoaks.
By PAUL WHITELAW
Published 6th Sep 2014, 01:00 BST
Sam Duckworth, aka Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. Picture: ContributedSam Duckworth, aka Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. Picture: Contributed
Sam Duckworth, aka Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. Picture: Contributed

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

King Tut’s, Glasgow

**

Most of his songs sound custom designed for tear-sodden montages of mannequins emoting. He inhabits a world where BBC 6 Music’s daytime playlist is considered cutting edge, where Coldplay and Snow Patrol, those twin gods of stadium MOR, remain his steady guiding lights.

The likes of I-Spy belong to that unyielding conveyor belt of Wonderwall rewrites, while the turgid Whitewash Is Brainwash sounds like Billy Bragg shouting in an underpass at no one. His lyrics posit vague concerns, transmitted via an ordinary voice lacking in distinction.

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To be fair, he wrote many of these songs as an adolescent: this lacklustre solo set consisted of material largely chosen from his 2006 debut album, The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager. Now 28, he’s decided to retire the Get Cape moniker for good. But by pointing out that the tender, pretty Once More With Feeling, still his most memorable song by far, was the first track on his first record, he all but admitted that he’d peaked too early.

It’s not that he’s without talent – The Plot is another pleasantly autumnal ditty cast in scattered shades of Simon & Garfunkel – but that his talent is inconsistent at best.

No matter how many smatterings of dubstep he throws behind his slick busker anthems, Duckworth is just another shaggy hipster with a frustrating lack of focus.

Seen on 01.09.14