The Go-Betweens
The Cobden Club, London
26th November 2002
NME Review

The Go-Betweens
London W10 Cobden Club

When The Go-Betweens' core songwriting duo of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan revived the band's recording career after a 12-year gap with 2000's 'The Friends Of Rachel Worth', the ecstatic response proved how much their legacy had endured. To many they were an '80s version of The Velvet Underground - not many people bought their records but most of those who did formed a band. Just ask Belle & Sebastian, who brazenly appropriated their take on wistful, literate and extremely catchy guitar pop. Now another album, 'Bright Yellow Bright Orange', is in the can and due for release early next year, and tonight Forster and McLennan effortlessly charm everyone's socks off again with a brief acoustic run through the new material.

What it sounds like is no surprise, but that's the whole point. Suffice to say that the likes of McLennan's barbed 'Poison In the Wall' and Forster's yearning 'Make Her Day' stand up there with anything they've ever done together.

They finish with a heavenly version of one of McLennan's most loved songs, 1987's hopelessly romantic 'Right Here'. While the transition is seamless, it's noticeable that there is no major clamour for the 'old stuff'. It's all timeless.

Alan Woodhouse