LEVI’S LAUNCH PARTY

N.E.R.D, Rotten Hill Gang, Fenech Solar
30/03/2010
Review by Dan Wade
Photography by Tom Oldham & Nic Serpell-Rand

To celebrate the re-launch of the Levi’s® Flagship Store last night saw a massive launch party at London’s Heaven. Billionaire Boys, N.E.R.D headed the bill, with support coming from the evergreen Mick Jones and his ramshackled vagabonds, The Rotten Hill Gang and electro pioneers Fenech Soler. Set in the intimate, underground vaults of Charing Cross, Heaven provided the perfect venue for a star spangled guest list and a plethora of hyper-ventilating competition winners queuing all the way up to Trafalgar Sq.

First to take to the stage were Kings Cliffe three-piece, Fenech Soler. Back in July 2009, Levi’s® hosted a special show to bring a thrilling finale to 5 nights of mind blowing, brand spanking new music. The band that headed up the show was the scintillating calypso-pop pioneers Friendly Fires. Tonight, in front of an already feverish, swollen crowd, Fenech Solar staked claim to their prince’s of pops crown. Smouldering through a wall of dry ice, with white skinny’s clinging to there thin, angular frames, they physically throw themselves into the cranium frazzling ‘Lies’. Jerking frantically from the mic to the front of the stage, Ben Duffy’s star shooting falsetto is encased by the shattering shards of knee trembling synths in all there sweat sodden, knee-trembling glory.

London Fashion Week maybe a few weeks away but judging by some of the stunning attire donned by tonight’s bright young things, you could have easily transformed the mosh-pit for a runway. Of course, we dig the double denim look but for the Dickensian dappery of Mick Jones and co style is a blank canvas. As is, it must be said, their music. A collective of ‘pwopa’ London characters, Rotten Hill Gang, dive between the fervour of punk ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ to the tales of old ‘Pick A Pocket Or Too’. Add into the mix, the lyrical flow of ‘Aaron’ and the sweet-like-chocolate harmonies of ‘Alexia’ and you’ve got yourself a funkadelic melting pot that sit’s comfortably between old school East-End boozers to Southbank Art houses.

Music and Levi’s®. It’s a combination eternally entwined through out the decades. From Bob Dylan, to The Rolling Stones, Levi’s® have forever dealt in superstars of Rock And Roll. Tonight, Pharrell Williams and his band, No One Ever Really Dies, or N.E.R.D to you and us, are the superstars charged with capping off a show that will go down as perhaps the best Levi’s® have hosted in our glittering history. Frontin the stage like an all-star American forward, Pharrell soaks up the electric atmosphere that borders on the absolute hysterical. Launching into ‘Party People’ the tight, funk driven licks are soundcased by screaming besotted females while the boom shacking baselines of ‘Hot And Fun’ reverberate up the nearby Thames like a tidal Wave. Combining experimental and expansive Hip-Hop cuts with synths cut like glass and pulsating slow jams, ‘Hot In Hurr’, ‘Maybe’ and ‘Sooner or Later’ sit pretty with a varied crowd of hardcore NERDS, Indie kids and Fashionisters, The liquid fluency of a band free from any instrumental constraints means crowd favourite ‘She Wants To’ flows delectably, while leading NERD lady Alesha Dixon does her best impression of herself in the crowd. Set closer and firm crowd favourite ‘Hot and Fun’ is belted out again, this time though, a topless Pharell is surrounded on stage by a gaggle of girls and a thousand eyes , starring at a true superstar and a headline act that, in this form,  will Never, Ever Really Die.

See more at photos at  www.facebook.com/LevisUK