From the Vatican to N1, Badwan's back on home turf. Plunged into darkness around half nine, his caricature features only intermittently protrude from shadow. Clasically trained comrade Rachel Zeffira meanwhile, who flitters from organ to oboe with carefree adroitness throughout, is bathed in blazing spotlight for much of their sweet, but bitterly short set. Far from good/bad/ugly distinction (the aesthetically akin duo could quite tenably don trenchcoats and obfuscate the entirety of a Knightsbridge window or two), there's a rather patent divide within Cat's Eyes, the gruelling Sooner Or Later irrefutably more Rocky Horror Show than Royal Opera House, whilst the brassy fanfares of The Best Person I Know see Faris rock and roll away into the backseat in his vintage guitar-laden lair stage right. The encore too sees Zeffira twinkle away, alone, on Love You Anyway, before Badwan rallies the troops to rattle through Sunshine Girls, the kind of ramshackle retro probably best described with that veritably gruesome, almost antiquated word: "groovy".
Opening with the similar '60's swing of their eponymous theme tune, Faris' largely incomprehensible husk delving deeper into the gloriously inaudible as the pair pingpong vocals off one another, they swiftly rumble on into a roisterous, runaway train-like take of Pink Floyd's Lucifer Sam that has a few visibly stupefied expressions bobbing, or at least nodding.
For those expecting ten tracks of startlingly despondent stuff as I Knew It Was Over a spot of sonic shell shock is to be expected, the Morricone-indebted Bandit entirely alternative. The Lull meanwhile, accompanied by wistful french horns, sees Faris at his most impassioned, mumbling his heart out from behind a Fender Mustang. Given his spindly, gargantuan figure it's nigh on impossible to tell whether or not he's tinkering away on a full-size model, his frame vaguely engulfing the black wand from which he casts the seething Face In The Crowd. In a vaguely comedic moment of a slapstick persuasion, a choir that momentarily seems endless streams onstage from the Scala's shoebox dressing rooms. They number eight, and they provide tonight's Zeffira-led highlight, I'm Not Stupid. Stripped of the Disney-esque strings that accompany its recorded rendition, Zeffira comes to the fore to plonk away impeccably on a vibraphone stage centre in an emotionally overwhelming couple of minutes that, lamentably, don't last forever, doomed to dwindle and die. At one point the stage is cluttered with sixteen bodies and ever so occasionally you're left longing for a moment of intimacy between Badwan and Zeffira, yet any such affinity is closely concealed. In a day and age of super-injunctions and tabloid aspersions their reticent rapport ought to keep many gazing deep into these eyes as conflicting lyrical insinuations clash, from "I knew it was over, I didn't have to ask why", to "Don't try and tell me you're the only one, you're not anyone at all." Scandal aside, it's probably best to let the music do the growling/cooing/snarling/soothing...
