The SoapGirls
Fat Randall
Futumche
Arches Venue Coventry
27th July 2017
Fighting Boredom try to get to as many gigs as we can, little local shindigs and big national festivals, whatever we can get to we do. So on a miserably cloudy Thursday in July we are at the Arches Venue in Coventry for the ‘Party In Hell’ tour with the jawdropping SoapGirls, the punky persuasions of Fat Randall and the experimental post punk of Futumche. Read what we thought below.
Another Thursday night at the Arches venue, the car parks full and as we walk in we pass two glamorous showgirls all glitter and big boots. There’s a fair crowd in watching Futumche. They are a trio from Coventry that describe themselves as playing ‘experimental rock/post punk’ which pretty much hits the mark.
They are not straightforward and as you may have gathered if you’ve been to fighting boredom before we are very much in favour of ‘not straight forward’. They have an angular post punk vibe, very tight and together. A hard stabbing sound that is at odds with the odd vocal style. A vocal that is off kilter and goes from straight storytelling to menacing and angry in a heartbeat.
They switch the music too, from thrash to oddball almost jazz and then back again, the guitar spiral upwards away from where you think they are going to go and the mashing wall of sound they achieve brings to mind the sheer bloody mindedness of prime No Wave bands. They move forward again into a fast biker garage punk groove and they get me.
They are completely at home with their noise, the way they look and sound gives you a hint of glamour, a smidge of horror and a huge splash of Rock’n’Roll with just a pinch of grunge. The vocalists is so powerful that the music is carried along and they play off each other.
The set slips into tribal drums, hard fast and punky but it kicks into a creepy crawly horrible menace. Slow, low and horrible.
Their last song is bass led, when I say bass led I mean that the sound of it overpowers the song and twists it into knots, brilliant. Then it slips somehow into a full on psychedelic noise mess with screaming. Fantastic. First band on and I am completely there already. What a set.
The crowd seem a little bigger now, Fat Randall are easy to listen to. They are Californian-Sunshine-Pop-Punk a-go-go, think of the greats; No-FX, Blink 182, Bad Religion. They echo all of those massively good bands with the high tuneful vocal and the fantastic buzzsaw guitars and bring it back to three kids that love this music and want to play the hell out of it. They are from Dubai, don’t think I’ve ever seen a band from Dubai before. They are melodic and quite possibly drunk with their very fun, catchy sound. They have a laugh with the crowd and themselves all the way through the set, they play this stuff well and you find yourself bopping away on the spot. The best bits are when they catch themselves out, the drummer starts a fast hectic beat halfway through the onstage almost awkward banter making the other two struggle to catch up and play along, they do and it’s great. They’ve got their own little twist on this well trodden path and they carry on the torch for all those that love this stuff. Big crunchy guitars, fast over the top drumming and hard as nails bass to ground it with a high almost whiny vocal. Great stuff.
The SoapGirls are ace. They are two sisters born in France and based in South Africa. They have been in the audience for the whole of the other two bands sets watching and now take the stage and divest themselves of their coats, leaving Mie wearing a showgirls headdress, costume and jewels on her face and Millie+ pretty much just wearing a feathered, ribboned necklace which leaves very little at all to the imagination. But as they have said, if they are told to do something they will do the opposite, so cover yourself up, is going to be greeted with the very least ignoring and at best a middle finger to the world. 
They have skeletons on their mike stands and start off wearing rubber old lady masks and atrocious matching accents as they take the piss out of each other, something that they carry on with for the whole set, saying ‘I’m only joking’ more than anything else while looking like they actually meant what they said from the bottom of their hearts.
They start off punky as hell. They are tight and fast, hard and precise, the harmonies are great and they play bloody well. Mie smiles a lot and makes eye contact with the crowd, which is pretty big, Millie looks like she’s going to punch someone, very focused and ever so slightly unnerving.
The music is angular and hard, they’re pretty damn good and damn pretty, they are like old school punk, not thrash but fun and hard and fast, spitting out attitude and having a huge laugh. Although underneath that is the impression that these two are hard as nails and have each others backs no matter what.
They move into a post grungy punky sound, still hard but looser and making you move with a great big enormous scream. If you need references for this you need to look at Debbie Harry, Courtney Love and L7, not just in the music but also in the fuck everything attitude and not being afraid to show their sexuality alongside really good music.
The music slithers and slides as it slows and calms, they sing sweetly and Mie isn’t smiling, there is a real feeling of sadness now. The song feels like it’s going to move quicker and harder but doesn’t and it’s stronger for that. They invite someone onstage for the Voodoo Drink, they are not at all taking themselves seriously when they talk between songs, the drummer for Fat Randall comes onstage and drinks from the Voodoo cup which looks like half a coconut with a big cock stuck on it, they make a big deal about not drinking all of it and then make him stay onstage and dance for the rest of the song. Voodoo Child is a mixture of straightforward punk and slow ska.
Millie ends a lot of the sings in a guitar hero pose in front of a laughing Mia then disaster strikes as her guitar doesn’t come on. They fix it and she smiles again and they throw in a crunching garage groove about hate, it’s faster and harder than before and it’s great.
The show is all about fun, not caring and irreverent humour. You get one beautiful smiley tarnished punkette showgirl and one pretty ribboned raggedy punkette road warrior. They play like that’s all that they want to do and at the end get all the women in the crowd up onstage for Bad Bitch. They kick arse while they laugh. Fantastic.
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Futumche
The SoapGirls 
