Time for Frames to forget the fans

WITH some songs, you know instantly that you're hearing a hit. You don't need any sort of it song science to realise you're in the presence of a monster. "Hit" is scrawled all over the melody, the verses, the chorus and the bit which connects the chorus to the verses (I think it's called the middle-eight, but don't quote me on that) in big, yellow, dayglo crayon.

If they're lucky, every band will eventually have one of their own, the song which takes on a life of its own and often outlives the band themselves.

Kiwi band The Chills were certainly onto something when they called their nugget Heavenly Pop Hit. The Frames call theirs People All Get Ready, and they might be onto something too. The band used a recent run of shows at Vicar St in Dublin to showcase unrecorded songs which are possible contenders for inclusion on their next album.

There were some fine tunes in the mix - a song called I'm Still Not Dancing had a certain resonance, as did one which might be called Sad Songs. But nothing made the room hum like People All Get Ready, which packs in more emotion, drama, intensity and vibrancy in six action-packed minutes than many acts get around to featuring in their entire career. It's a hit, in any language.

But People Get Ready has been doing the rounds for the guts of four years. The song featured in the band's live sets in 2002, but didn't appear on either 2003's Set List live release or 2004's Burn the Maps album, the one they spent 2005 touring all over the world.

When The Frames played People All Get Ready the other night, the audience responded to every word, every chord change and every narrative turn as if it was part of the furniture. That's some going for a track which has only featured in live sets to date.

That the track has yet to be recorded is interesting in the bigger scheme of things. Burn the Maps enabled The Frames to spend 2005 touring Europe, the US, Australia and all points inbetween, but the album grows worse with age. A sop to an audience who wanted a certain sound and song, Burn the Maps is truly awful, the first major misstep in the band's history. And it came about because they made the record their audience wanted to hear.

The Frames seem destined to be always loitering at a cross- roads in their career. Partly it's their own fault. As Glen Hansard noted in a 2002 interview with The Ticket, they are "the band who will snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory".

Right now, they have the songs to make the album which behoves their standing as one of the biggest and most influential acts in this country, a band who exist and thrive almost in spite of what they're been through. To make this record, they also require a certain temperament, ambition and determination, qualities which are probably there in one shape or another.

But they also need to forget all about their audience when they go into that recording studio. The Frames have reached this stage in their career thanks to the support of their fans and they've always acknowledged that, sometimes to their detriment.

Yet there comes a time when such patronage starts to suffocate a band and restrains their ability to make great, challenging music. At the show last week, the audience tolerated the new material, but they really wanted to hear Finally, Revelate and Fake. As we saw with Burn the Maps, recycling old ideas and methods will only provide material for preaching to the converted.

Undoubtedly, The Frames have the guts of a magnificent new album to hand, but only time will tell if they themselves have the guts to make it. Ensuring that People All Get Ready makes the final cut will be a good start.