Published in Sounds, 15th May 1982
Altered Images | Gig Review | Newcastle 1982 | FLASHBACK: FEBRUARY ’81 and the Adam And The Ants conquering hero tour. Support on that lap of honour were Altered Images, newly signed to Epic, squeaky clean and perhaps the greenest act ever to play a major tour.
Yanked out of their youth clubs and church halls, Images looked totally at sea, way out of their depth and floundering. How a third-rate version of Siouxsie And The Banshees who could barely play and for the most part stood statue-like and sullen, were going to be expected to shift the units seemed like a mystery of Sherlock Holmes proportions.
Then, along came Martin Rushent who rolled up his sleeves and did a genuine Grade-A silk purse job. He chose to play up the simplistic childishness that lurked beneath the doomed attempt at Banshee-type sophistication. Hey presto —the perfect pop group, deposing the vastly superior Undertones, champions of naivety.
Altered Images | Gig Review | Newcastle 1982
Three hits later and Clare Grogan and her Images have rarely been off the telly. They are the kings and the queen of the ‘anyone can do this facade of pop music.
All enthusiasm and no expertise. Unhampered by minor details like having to actually play their instruments, Altered Images bounce, hopelessly out of time, around a nation’s 21 inchers in an orgy of chummy gormlessness. Altered Images — the band who launched 10,000 HP agreements.
And, of course, in Clare Grogan we found a new national sweetheart (in fact, maybe the first national sweetheart since Vera Lynn). She’s undoubtedly a smart girl and knows how to play on it.
Fortunately, the live act has come on a mile in the last 15 months. The lads still look at their fingers a lot, and deprived of Rushent the best they sound is adequate. But the show is now a show. Nobody comes on like they’d much rather be having a game of footy somewhere else. Not quite up to their TOTP standard, but not bad.
Their inexperience shines through these days more on pacing. Numbers like ‘Goodnight I Wish’ and ‘See You Later’ are tailor-made for last-song-in-the-set-before-the-encore status, but aren’t used there. The incongruity of the inclusion of Neil Diamond‘s ‘Song Sung Blue’ makes it an ideal encore, but again it’s thrown away.
More important is the lack of variety. Images music is dead simple, a basic beat brought well to the fore by a superb drum sound with the embellishment layered on top. Enough room for plenty of manoeuvring, but no. There’s an Altered Images formular which is well hammered in the hour they are on stage.
Altered Images | Gig Review | Newcastle 1982
Identikit images first surface with ‘See Those Eyes’ and come up again and again via ‘Pinky Blue, ‘Funny Funny Me’ and ‘Where Are You’ amongst others. Songs that would be pleasant enough for a couple of hearings are insufferable after more than that.
The clincher is ‘Song Sung Blue. No way does it stand out like the sore thumb it should. With the usual shrill vocal, Hank Marvin guitar and chimes, it could be something that the band knocked together in the dressing room before they came on. It’s got to be a bad sign if Altered Images can put themselves into automatic pilot this early in their career.
One furrow they’re going to plough until they’re pinky blue in the face? All cute form and no substance, a credible Lena Zavaroni? (Ian Ravendale)
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