The Student live review
February or March 1982
Fresh Fruit
Graeme Wilson sees that light at the end of the tunnel. Is it an oncoming train?
But what is a Strawberry Switchblade? A strawberry is a small red fruit, delicious with cream and sugar, better with pepper. A switchblade is a large knife that licks open in dark alleys and cuts into some unfortunate body, each stroke burning frigidity. Strawberry Switchblade are four girls, oh so sweet in polka dot prints and ribbons in their hair, singing short, sharp songs that cut. I love strawberries. I hate switchblades.
But what is a guest? A guest s someone you invite to your home a welcome visitor. The Guests gatecrash into an evening whose predominant air was sweetness and life trample heavily over any dreams you might hold dear that punk was not dead with a heavy metal sick-chic, then leave. The party, though mortally wounded, goes on.
Gig listing in The Student – the concert was a John Peel event on Friday 19 February 1982.
But what is Sophisticated Boom Boom? They are the pepper on my strawberries, proof that my heart is after months of doubt in the right place. I live to feast on their delights. Whipped up in a strawberry sundae of pop fun, a taste so heady and yet so rare, I am moved to acclaim with great intensity.
Four girls, with an inability to take themselves seriously, radiate charm that brightens up this bleak Nite Club, and become a lighthouse to steer towards, a safe port in the storm of musical tedium. As strawberrys are the taste of summer, so musically are Sophisticated Boom Boom. Light, dreamy, soft focus, their version of White Horses a memory of TV mornings in school summer holidays.
They sing about love, hate, Teenage Kicks, and sex. Their classy unprofessionalism both in songs and performance is an exotic fruit. All the fun of the show, no cynical manipulation of a showman. They return not once, but twice for encores of genuine demand. Sophisticated Boom Boom – the answer to the question – is their dance without funk. Who said pop was dead? My heart goes boom, boom.