My Coldplay.com

EIGHTIES children’s TV theme tunes. Cut’n’ paste hip-hop. And the odd cheerleader chant thrown in for good measure.

On paper, The Go! Team’s chaotic musical couplings really shouldn’t work - but they do.

In a music scene dominated by identikit indie bands, the Brighton outfit are a breath of fresh air.

The Go! Team are a six- piece band (with two drummers) whose songs are a mixture of action theme songs, cheerleader chants, guitars and early hip-hop, with a hint of 70s funk. Their songs are a mix of live instrumentation and samples from various sources.

Their Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, instantly had them marked as one of the most exciting new British bands, with the mighty NME first among those to sing the six-piece’s praises - “one of the greatest bands in the world today”, gushed the world’s biggest selling music weekly.

The album was recorded on a shoestring budget by guitarist/drummer/song-writer Ian Parton, who says the Mercury experience was “just bizarre”.

“The journey from making something in your bedroom to a sea of flashguns and a red carpet is pretty funny and a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he says.

The band’s popularity increased with the re-issue of Ladyflash in the UK charts, resulting in national prime-time airplay on radio stations such as Radio 1 and the Atlanta, USA-based 99X.

Live, they are no slouches either. As anyone who watched the band’s Edinburgh debut at Liquid Room a few years ago will testify, The Go! Team and a good night out go hand in hand.

The venue for the band’s return visit could hardly be more different. Taking place at the Mansfield Traquair - an extraordinary 19th century building that is otherwise known as “Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel” - the gig is sponsored by Smirnoff, who tonight bring their hugely successful Electric Cabaret nights to the Capital.

Don’t expect any tranquillity where The Go! Team are concerned, though.

“We’ve got running around, dancing, a banjo here, someone’s pulled out a harmonica, someone’s at another set of drums, I even play the jingle bells on one song,” exclaims front lady MC Ninja, who says she relishes her role in the band.

The other band members are Chi ‘Ky’ Fukami Taylor, Kaori Tsuchida, Jamie Bell, and Sam Dook.

It was only after The Go! Team played at the Glastonbury Festival a couple of years ago that they realised just what they had.

“We were on at the same time as Coldplay,” recalls MC Ninja. “We were playing the tent, and they were headlining at the main stage. We thought no-one was going to see us.

“They have the new album out, yeah, yeah, everyone’s going to see them, but our tent was packed with loads of people.

“There were about 4000 people there and we started to realise that people maybe wanted to see something different.

“With Coldplay and some of these guitar bands, you know what you’re going to get. But with The Go! Team, you’ll want to stay to the end, because you don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Looking ahead to this evening’s gig, and the band reveal they are keen to try out some songs from their sophomore album, which is not due out until the autumn, alongside some newer material.

“Scotland gives us such a great response every time, so we’re going to test out some new songs from the album. We wouldn’t have done it anywhere else,” adds Ninja.

Added entertainment tonight comes from Lemon Jelly’s Fred Deacon, who will provide a rare DJ set, as well as a contemporary cabaret line-up that includes a human beatboxer, burlesque dancers and a man who can disappear inside a six-foot balloon and reappear fully dressed as Elvis Presley.

We kid you not.

Scotsman