Art Brut: Splash it all over

Sometimes it’s a mistake to see a band live.

Before going to Art Brut’s show at Lee’s Palace this week (their first Toronto appearance in two-and-a-half years), I had somehow managed not to see photos, and had assembled a mental image of gangly, wild-eyed kids in either tight suits or ripped T-shirts, yelling their hysterical, absurd patter-lyrics over punk rock with a manic abandon. I was fond of this mental image.

Turns out Art Brut are more like the cast of the Cambridge Footlights Revue playing rock’n'roll, with Stephen Fry as the frontman, only a touch thinner and not quite as brilliant (though still very smart). I really should have known, but I did not know.

That said, they were pretty great live except for the moments - such as the song about “how I used to be crap at sex,” for instance - when they threatened to turn into the Barenaked Ladies. This is a band at risk of goofballing out, and should decidedly avoid all temptations such as the moment when they all turned into human statues and held the freeze for an eight-count on the turnaround before a big chorus. Art Brut should not be too comprehensible or too comfortable. When Eddie Argos is on his big tirades about popular culture (”there are no records in the record shops!” “popular culture no longer applies to me!” “we hate the music-buying public!” “slapdash for no cash - those are the records I like”) his music-hall personality acquires enough of an edge to fend off the squishy embrace of whimsy. Otherwise the band might as well go get a singer who can sing.