Photos, LIVE Review: Insomniacs Ball 2009, London

Getting into character, we seek out the Insomniacs Ball at a quarter to one in the morning, still on a come-down from Dan Deacon + The Wham City Ensemble's revelatory set at the University of London Union. London's gritty Elephant and Castle isn't an ideal neighbourhood to be wandering around in a gristly rainfall looking for the hidden arts space cum music venue of Corsica Studios. We step on a loose chunk of sidewalk, and a thick grey puddle laps our leg in greeting. Good thing we left our gowns at home for this Ball.

Once we find it, the white-box wannabe interior of the Studios is a welcome reprieve from the precipitation and the desolation of the street. The event adopts the feel of an amiably eerie house party where no one knows anyone else, and the mad-social scientist host has left to let the human crucible simmer. From a friendly straw poll around the bar, it seems about half of the hundred-odd person crowd have also arrived around midnight or later. The other half seems to be in a decidedly different zone, having presumably been partying since the 8PM start of the Ball. Carnage has only lifted its ugly head to have a little look around. We were expecting it to be in a full-on headbang by this point.

Meanwhile, Bloody Awful Poetry spin some comforting 80s pop tunes. Some leopard print-toting lady bops to Devo the way we thought only people in Molly Ringwald movies danced. It is impressive.

Everything Everything take the stage clad in the art-rock uniform of black and white with red accents. Their internet hype machine is cranking out promises of chaotic energy cubes puréed until smooth, but we wonder if the gloss of the recording studio will lose its lustre live. It doesn't for the glittery instrumental bits and three-part harmonies, as the quartet lock into its shiny riffs with admirable unity. The main fascination of the band, however, is the yelpy lead vocals, as frontman Jonathan (surname Everything, of course) skips around his range break between belt and falsetto as his signature. It makes for a strangely appealing pseudo-choral effect when laying down a track, but is unsurprisingly difficult for a relatively young band to master when playing a 1AM set live. 

Whereas we can give EE the late-set/new-band benefit of the doubt for the uncomfortable vocals, their stage presence does them no favours - they seem more interested in addressing the sound booth than their audience, giving humourless sound-checking orders after nearly every song in the set. The moodiness is disappointing from an ensemble whose quirky, happy-go-lucky pisstake attitude scribbled all over their lyrics and Myspace page bulks out their appeal. The songcraft is good, and some moments get the crowd in a proper dance-down, but ultimately we expect more out-and-out fun from a group led by a man in purposefully mismatched socks. We really wanted to love you, Everything Everything, but you didn't seem to want us to tonight.

After some more pleasant dj-ing, Chik Budo launch into a double sax-packing heatwave of discordantly harmonious neo-funk. They exude the confidence and enthusiasm that we missed from EE earlier, and we love them for it. Each of the five members performs with his or her own breed of flair, and they seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves with every clack or squeal they make. Half of the audience seems to lose interest in the noisier flirtations with experimental, but the rest stay physically engaged through the danceable set. 

Chik Budo are very good at their accessible acid jazz take on electro-blitz, save a little weakness on the minimalist vocals, but something is a little off in this strange gathering. Perhaps that something is best embodied in the man who spends the set slumped over with his head on the stage, only to throw up the middle finger with head still down and then proceed to get up and dance for the last song. Even if the glazed-eyed crowd couldn't completely buy in, at least Chik Budo had fun - possibly more fun than the rest of us.

The night devolves from there, giving way to celebrity DJ spots for a fast-fleeing crowd.  Successfully, Plugs' Morgan DJs a refreshing blend of retro and modern hip-hop and pop classics to a small but enthusiastic room. But headliner DJs Late of the Pier are nowhere to be seen in the booth--it seems that even they have abandoned the now-empty main room. Carnage now rears its fatigued mug in the form of a man who nearly slams into us whilst being escorted out by a reassuringly large number of security staffers. It is only 4AM (the Ball is slated to end at 6), but this is not a house party from which we want to be the last to go. Still, we're glad to have been a part of this interesting annual social experiment on collective sleep patterns, not least to escape from the neighbourhood and the rain.

Live Photos Courtesy Of Holly Erskine: