Gig Review: The Dare - Live at Kentish Town Forum
The tamest game of Truth or Dare you’ll ever endure. But it will sound fun tomorrow.
“Listen to me son. If you get up on that stage with no band, no instruments, just you in that silly fucking Topman suit, you’re gonna look like a right fucking prat.”
These words, uttered to me by Pub Man No. 5 in the depths of a central London dive bar, laid to waste the grand delusions of my younger years. I used to hold the belief that through my sheer force of charisma and personality, I could adorn a stage armed with just a shabby suit, Logic Pro demos, and a certainty that I was actually being subversive, and ascend to the upper echelons of pop music.
I never thought I’d see this dream realised, never stick it to the pub man and his archaic view of what makes music music, never see a skinny posh indie-brit lad in a black and white suit talk-sing tumblr boilerplate statements over blaring balearic beats.
Then I saw The Dare.
For those unfamiliar with the new face of the indie sleaze revival (i’m sorry i really am), Harrison Patrick Smith first garnered attention as ‘The Dare’ through his high-fashion appeasing club night ‘Freakquencies’, a series of parties giving debauchery a clean and accessible face for the well-to-dos of downtown New York. After two years of curious LCD Soundsystem comparisons and a growing buzz that would put your least favourite mosquito to shame, 2024 saw The Dare end up as the chuntering lackey to Charli’s Brat Summer™.
This association means Smith has no trouble packing out two dates at Kentish Town Forum. Black and white suits paired with H&M sunglasses are peppered throughout the throng. Folk are friendly, there’s the feeling of a first year at uni pre drinks stinking up the air. Everyone’s ready for a good time.
The crowd is already packed by the time the support rolls up. The most memorable element of the following 30 minutes is when the charming man on stage drops his trousers. Cue the woos. He then awkwardly clambers his trousers back on. More woos. He then drops them again during the next song. Woo.
It’s a cute aside that sums up the entire evening. We hit all the beats that you associated with head loss hedonism without ever enjoying the sense of spontaneity that draws us to chaos in the first place. As The Dare rolls through a tight hour set with no pause for breath, you’re left with an empty feeling in your body where the unadulterated thrill of being silly should be. All the fake Marshall amps and blaring strobes cannot gloss over the fact that this party lacks any of the soul that makes the best nights live long in the memory.
There is little to no musical variation, giving the performance a sense of being in the background. This might be fine if you’re off your nut and more focused on what your friends are doing rather than what's happening on stage, but for those who have opted against a Tuesday evening on the chang you’re left with the feeling you’re watching a party through an Instagram filter. The whole event feels meticulously calculated to adhere to the dictionary definition of debauchery, delivered by a man who seems to have spent most of his time studying how to be cool instead of cultivating an engaging personality of his own.
It’s the appropriation of fun. It’s strip teasing off your trousers before awkwardly shuffling them back on so you can repeat the trick. It’s cocaine. It’s a tik-tok house party. It’s the hollowed barks of a man caught up in his own self-awareness. It’s the perfect way to show everyone you’re having the time of your life without ever feeling a single thing.
The tamest game of Truth or Dare you’ll ever endure. But it will sound fun tomorrow.