I really used to like DHC. When I was at university one of my housemates used to play their stuff all the time. Bearing in mind this is way before the MP3 became popular, or even before I had a CD burner, I ended up doing myself a DHC mixtape and pretty much wore it out. The dual vocals were always fantastic and their sugary ska-pop sounds had harmonies as sweet as a nut. This DVD is the latest in Kung Fu’s live series, and with the band seeminly on hiatus or in hibernation, this is probably the closest many of us will get to seeing them live any time soon.
‘Lost Again’, ‘The Real You’, ‘Triple Track’ and ‘Cat Fight’ stand out for being absolutely fantastic. To be honest, their live performance is solid and impressive and relatively tight. The frontwomen have boundless energy and personality and their enthusiasm is captured well on DVD. I did find that the 19 songs tended to drag on a bit towards the end, and the lack of ‘Cricket’ and, well, most of the sonsg off ‘Purr’ actually, lost a half-star for me. DVDs will always disappoint some people for content and the setlist isn’t made up of my favourite DHC tracks, so I guess I’m the unlucky one.
The DVD itself is shot reasonably well and is certainly up to Kung Fus previous TSMGO standards. The extras are on the relatively basic side, but that’s not why you will buy this DVD. You will buy it simply for the live set – and at the end of the day that is well performed and extremely enjoyable. A must buy for fans of the band, and well worth checking out if, for some reason, DHC have snuck underneath your radar.
Kung Fu Records
Paul