The Pitz, Milton Keynes 12 May 2004
This was an unusual gig for Client, I should imagine. Tonight they were supporting a new act called Carbon/Silicon, which is a duo of Mick Jones of The Clash, and Tony James from Generation X, who were on a 'pre-tour'-tour of selected small venues. Tonight's venue was The Pitz, which is part of Milton Keynes' Woughton Centre. Let’s not disguise this - The Pitz is essentially part of a leisure centre, and it's also tiny. However, it's rare for me to get to see a Mute act outside of London, and, venue aside, this was a perfect concert.
Audience-wise, it was clear that only myself and one other individual were here to see Client. The mix was mostly male, but the age range was surprising – there were the teen NME readers with Iron Maiden t-shirts and dog-collars ('A guy from The Clash – cool! Er, what did they sing again?'), through to guys who had seen The Clash back when they were about the same age. The audience formed in a rough semi-circle toward the back of the (sports) hall, which kind of left my fellow Client fan and I exposed at the very front. The crowd reaction to Client was actually pretty warm – then again, us males are easy, really. Put two fit girls on stage in skirts and blouses, one wearing – gulp – a pair of patent leather gloves, and we're generally happy.
Kate Holmes, tiny and elegant with a smile that would make most men weak at the knees (guilty as charged), stands on the left of the stage, behind a Nord Lead synth, while their backing vocalist and mixer (whose name I don’t know) takes the right. Sarah Blackwood, looking impossibly tall in her matching black blouse and green army-fatigued combat skirt, takes centre stage. They are all grins and winks, with Holmes trying unsuccessfully to get Blackwood to copy her hand-on-hip dance on the opening bars of the first track, 'Pills'.
They rip through a further five tracks – a seminally-extended 'Rock 'n' Roll Machine', a somehow more sexually aggressive version of 'Client' (when Blackwood uttered the words 'F##k off, don’t touch me there' at the close of the track she really meant it), the astonishing hard pop of new single 'In It For The Money', and a new one on me which I'm guessing is called 'Come On'. They concluded with 'Happy', it’s chorus of 'I’m happy / She’s happy / So why the f##k are you not happy?' directed it would seem at the immovable throng of blokes at the back of the sports hall. The electronics were precise and harsh, deploying square waves and white noise where the album tracks were almost 'cleansed' of rough edges.
It all lasted no more than 30 minutes, and genuinely felt like a very personal gig (I even managed to get a smile out of Blackwood for God's sake; in fairness it was probably a smirk at my lonesome dancing). I didn’t stick around for Carbon/Silicon – after speaking to the other hardened Client fan after the gig, who had seen them live with Client the night before in Colchester, I’m glad ('They’re rubbish,' he told me).