Wall of Mouths

from the dutch music magazine Oor, akin to NME.

Therapy a long way from being forgotten

it’s a sacreligious question for the many fans in the tivoli for this sell-out show, but do Therapy? still exist?
The pessimistic, Andy Cairns and cohort’s text-driven rock never got worse, but after 6 or so albums we
kind of lost sight of the band. Even the latest, and twelfth, album, Crooked Timber won’t be a major comeback.
But the fans don’t care, tonight they’ll see their heroes. Old heroes for sure.

But first up it’s Utrecht’s own Secret Handshake Club – who confus the venue with their mix of emo, metal and
atmospheric rock. The technical passages and long intros are tasty enough despite the band not sounding very
original. Every time I die, Lost Prophets, they’ve done their homework. This doesn’t have to be a problem, as long
as their gig is tight. But they’re far from tight. OK, so a microphone failed, the backing vocals went from screamingly
loud to inaudible, but the band itself was too disorganised. Behind the fashionably dressed lead singer is an
uncertain, echoing girl who manages to sing completely out of tune the entire evening. The keyboardists blips and
beeps are lost during the entire set, which causes the hall to empty a wee bit – these youngsters can’t keep a hold
of the older audience’s attention. Not even the appearance of a sweltering youngman dressed in tight black
dress is able to save this performance.

(translators’ note: for those who don’t know: Secret Handshake Club’s latest lp has a transvestite
on the cover, who joined them onstage at the end)

Then the lights go out and the stage is emptied of unneccessary pedals, laptops and other such rubbish.
We only need 3 men here tonight with a minimum of fuss. A roar breaks loose as Andy Cairns straps on his guitar,
Michale McKeegan is handed a shiny black bass and drummer Neil Cooper quietly takes his place behind his kit.
Cairns, with a stout belly and hardly any hair on his head, greets the hall and quickly starts to play. As if they
needed to prove themselves again they quickly run through the new album and it has to be said that it sounds
excellent. Single Crooked Timber hypnotises with teneous guitar and full-on bass, above which Cairn’s
characteristic voice can’t really be heard.

The sound man seems to have forgotten that Therapy make voice-driven songs and he turns the bass and
drums up too high. It takes a while before the hall comes to life, but the first signs of activity in the pit
are noted during the song Exiles and then the atmosphere is made. The trio play as they did in the past,
and even if the band members aren’t as active on stage as they used to be the energy explodes from the
dimly-lit stage. The new songs are delivered well live, but the loud bass sound begins to rankle. Cairns makes
jokes along the way with his “gezellig” irish accent,McKeegan tones his bass in every imaginable angle with a
wide-grin all over his face and the audience tries to get even closer to the stage than is physically possible.

When the old material from hit albums Troublegum and Nurse is played, the place explodes. Crowdsurfers
are flying everywhere, a wild moshpit erupts and every sentence from hard rockers like Turn and Teethgrinder
are accompanied in full by the crowd. Like the 30-year-old are suddenly 16 again. Cairns can be heard much
better during the old songs and the band seems to relax more when playing them – but who cares, just sing
with all your lungs and avoid the many stagedivers. Cairn’s microphone fails during Diane, but the hall comes
to his rescue and takes over from him. A “gezellig”show of almost 2 hours of hits and tightly played, the answer
is that Therapy? can still do it. We shouldn’t have let them out of our sight, those Irishmen.

translator’s note: the dutch word “gezellig” cannot be translated literally and can mean a myriad of things,
from cozy and homely to tasty to even describing a boring date you had………… so I left it in the original Cloggyspeak!