Ashley Collins smiled at me. On the stairs down to the basement of Nice and Sleazy Ashley Collins smiled at me. It was a genuine Colgate moment as she has really nice teeth. Really, really nice teeth. I didn’t actually know it was her at that point but even if I had I wouldn’t have been any less impressed.
Ashley Collins took to the stage. She’s not even got her regular guitarist with her so it just the lady and her backing tracks. The show must go on, after all, and like a blonde robo doll she danced, twirled and struck poses as she belted out straight to the point electro dance ditties like “Claustrophobia” and the so annoying that you can’t get it out of your head “SuperDiva”. It isn’t too much of a stretch to see her filling dance floors in Europe or even Japan for that matter.
Musician shortages also affected Spiderico judging by the empty seat behind the drum kit but when you are a band doing heavily programmed drum ‘n’ bass, you can adapt to such inconveniences. While it wasn’t hard to detect influences like the Prodigy and even Rage Against the Machine in their songs, Spiderico were more than mere copyists and proved instead to be capable of delivering complex and atmospheric urban rhythms. Too good for the dance floor and that’s a fact.
Perhaps The Crossover were put off their stride by having to follow Ashley Collins for their performance just didn’t gel. With hoodies and sunglasses to advertise their streetwise connection, a Peugeot driving attitude and floor slamming tunes were expected but, even with the apple laptop locking things together, the live drummer was – what’s the diplomatic phrase? – under rehearsed and the white boy rap was – what’s the diplomatic phrase? – unconvincing.
Anyway, Ashley Collins smiled at me. Ashley Collins wears nice shoes. Ashley Collins will go far. I’ll put money on it. In fact, I want to be Ashley Collins’ manager. I’ll make more money that way.