The Dare, New Century. 19th March 2025

With a sound dominated by break beats, heavy bass and socially sharp lyrics, my love of The Dare was pretty instant. Previously working as Turtlenecked, Harrison Smith had passed me by, but with the new moniker, I’ve fallen hard with the album What’s Wrong with New York? on heavy rotation. It sounds like a New York record. James Murphy style yelps wrapped around a crisp clean production, that allows all that electronic goodness space to ooze cool… and this is very concerned with being cool. What’s it like live though? Well it’s very faithful. There is equipment on stage, but it’s not really utilised. A vast array of lights and Harrison wielding a mic in a black suit, sunglasses and skinny tie are all that’s needed. It goes off for ‘Open Up’ and ‘Good Time’ and it’s immediately obvious that I’m at the older end of the audience spectrum. Things calm a little for the lesser known ‘Sex’, but there’s still plenty of hands in the air and the bass is indeed gloriously dirty. As if to prove me wrong about the lack of any live instrumentation, he grabs a symbol and smashes it, held aloft during ‘Perfume’. To be honest though, he’s not the main ingredient here. Neither is the machine gun bass on ‘I Destroyed Disco’, it’s the crowd. They are a seething mass of arms (many with phones attached). Screaming every lyric. With one album and EP to go at, there’s a bit of padding with a cover of The Sound’s ‘I Can’t Escape Myself’ that does lose the energy, simply because the crowd are too young to know it. Like I said, the crowd are essential here. Not that it sounds anything like the new wave punky original. New song ‘Cheeky’ could suffer the same fate, but it follows the breakneck formula and it grabs the audience. It’s quickly becoming apparent, the idea is a full on assault set. Hit them hard, then hit them harder. ‘Lights Camera Action’ sees the room go nuts. I’m stood to the side, but there really is no side. It’s a blur of mullets, plastic cups with straws and perfect skin. ‘Elevation’ is more of a comedown song, not one to finish on, but it signals the impending break that ‘You Can Never Go Home’ ironically ushers in. It’s woozy intro builds as the kick drum returns and those synths glide. It’s a shame it’s all a backing track but it still sounds wonderful. There’s really no need for an encore in this set other than to kill some time. I’m bored of these outdated theatrics and it seems particularly cynical here. After 30 seconds he’s back with ‘Movement’. But to be honest although it sounds great, because it’s all largely one pace the set is starting to thin and we’re not even close to an hour. ‘All night’ works better as the crowd find their voice again, I’ll keep saying it, the crowd make this work. I don’t think it’s going to make the end of year list, maybe expectations were too high, but it’s still a lot of fun and ‘Girls’ that closes is phenomenal. It’s short. It’s sharp. It’s sexy and it’s worth it to hear these songs at a decent rib-rattling volume. Hopefully next time there’ll be a bit more of a show.