Nero

Nero is not a coffee chain. Well it is, but its also a dance band. So on Saturday night I headed off to Brixton to see them. Having come across them through a friend’s teenage lad, I guess it should not be a surprise to find myself at least 30 years above the average age of the audience. I am getting used to it, but as I approach 50 I do find it increasingly difficult to think of myself as a teenager any more!

Now, for older readers, I should say this was not like going to a gig 30 years ago, nor really like going to the indie gigs I more regularly attend. Firstly, if one rolls up at an indie gig just gone 7pm, you walk straight in. And at the front there will be a little gaggle of fans, most of whom are just politely listening to the first support act while chatting to each other waiting for the main performer. Here I turned up to find a queue round the block. And at the front, for a DJ set (albeit Zane Lowe) as the support, there is a huge crowd going absolutely mental. You see it’s party time. That’s what its actually about.

The other point to note for the older generation is that the dancing basically takes two forms. The one is the bouncing around with arms in the air. (Sorry that sounds patronising.  It’s not meant to be. All dance basically sounds a bit silly if described. And frankly this is just kids having fun in a very natural way. Contrast to the wedding celidh of the previous weekend which is essentially a glorified party game for which one really needs an instruction manual.)

The second form of dance takes place in the mosh pit in front of the stage and consists of young turks just bouncing off each other. It probably fufils the same function as rugby in a boys private school, but sweatier and with less risk of serious damage. Its really an exercise in release of testosterone in the young male. And why not? They clearly love it. A little notice at the door warned that at the front it would be "lively", and it certainly was. Don’t worry, I was at the wings watching on, having long ago used up any testosterone I ever possessed.

One would no doubt have had similar physicality at a punk gig in the late Seventies, but without the good natured element in this crowd. And unlike the anorexic punks, some of these lads could probably hold their own on the rugby field, which I doubt Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious could ever have done.

So you get the picture. As I say, you had enthusiastic mayhem for Zane Lowe’s DJ set pretty much from the start, when polite applause is what you would expect from an equivalent indie gig.

The other thing that’s different for a drum and bass act like Nero is there isn’t anything to see of the artists themselves. It’s all computer generated electronic music, so Nero (who are two guys with a part-time female vocalist) just stand behind a computer deck in cool shades and press buttons.

So what do you get for your money that you don’t get from a download?  Well for a start there is the sort of bass that if you tried at home would probably undermine the foundations of your house. Noise level is important. Then there is the light show. Now this works best on a big scale – see the Chemical Brothers (as I did with said teenager last summer) and the lighting really is an art form in its own right. Scaled down for Nero at Brixton it was less entrancing until the lasers started towards the end.

And you do get the female vocalist who both has a commanding voice (you don’t want something reedy over this stuff) and is very attractive to look at. I was surprised her presence wasn’t used more.

And of course you get the atmosphere, a teenage audience going absolutely bonkers.  And that collective attitude is probably what they enjoy most. And I am happy to look on from the wings. While I can imagine a lot of adults tutting its just a matter of going with the flow. It’s heady stuff really, although you probably need a teenager to get the full vitality of it all.

And Nero does have a great album, Welcome Reality, veering from their most hardcore (and my favourite) track (appropriately titled Doomsday) to a slightly bubble gum pop vocal over heavy bass beat in Crush on You. This sort of music is worth checking out. Dance music has moved on from seventies disco. A long way.  It’s more serious as well as more fun. It's exhilarating. Really. And before you sneer at computer nerds and ask what happened to real musicians, these two played classical guitar and cello as teens. They just found something rather better when they grew up.

Anyway, I see they are supporting David Guetta in the June bank holiday at the Ally Pally, so I suspect I will get round to seeing them again soon. Well, that's walking distance from home, so worth the jaunt.

Oh, and a funny thing happened to me on the way to the show. I was just walking down to Wood Green tube station when a rather buxom, smiling Asian lady asked me where I was going.  I am not used to even my friends showing that much interest, but to be polite I said I was on my way to an evening out in Brixton.

"You want some jiggy-jiggy later?" she replied. What is the world coming to? Prostitution. In broad daylighht. In Palmers Green. (Well to be fair, it was more Wood Green, but even so, its getting close.) The state of things.