The Hoosiers at the Ambassador, Dublin

Sigh – another kid friendly show at The Ambassador. This reporter thought such events were almost exclusively reserved for performances from teen-emo/goth-rock favourites. It seems he was mistaken – purveyors of wet and wimpy indie-pop are also beloved of the under-18s.
Indeed, the evening provoked a re-think on a number of issues. This music lover had always harboured a pet theory that indie is usually at its best when it can be loosely termed “indie-pop”, and at its worst when appearing closer to “indie-rock”. The former term emphasises the playful melodicism and stylishness of the genre’s finest, while the latter calls to mind its occasionally overbearing worthiness and conservatism. Bands like The Hoosiers put this hypothesis to the test.
No one observing tonight’s performance could doubt that the group are indie-pop to the core. They prance onstage, clutching colourful, oversized letters, which spell out the band’s name when they stand shoulder to shoulder. The between-song banter is cheery to the point of tweeness, and this tone is closely mirrored in the music.
The Hoosiers are made for the radio; their rinky-dink piano-driven ditties are designed for consumption in single doses, rather than successive ones. This music is sugary-sweet, verging on sickly, and the weakness is amplified when they must pad out a full-length live set. There are only so many re-writes of ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ one can sit through before it starts to become a little trying.
Ordinarily, at such gigs, the Big Singles will provide the evening’s peaks. Yet, despite the relative superiority of hit tracks ‘Goodbye Mr A’ and ‘Worried About Ray’ (when compared to most of the set) the show’s highlight comes from a less predictable source. The Hoosiers exhibit impressive silk-purse-making skills with a fabulous re-invention of Billy Joel’s execrable ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, altering the arrangement in such a way that the original’s smarmy ebullience is replaced with a considerably more seductive sense of melancholic yearning.
Smart stuff, but not quite enough to salvage a middling gig.