Chas and Dave: Rabbit  Rabbit  Rabbit  Rabbit  Rabbit - Photo by Tara Vickers

Being a foreigner, I hadn’t heard of Chas & Dave before I was assigned to review the gig, so I did some asking around. The two things I was told were to make sure I didn’t laugh, as they are not a comedy act and that it’s a good old-fashioned “cockney knees-up” -  whatever the hell that is. I assumed it was something similar to a Chelsea smile where instead of taking a blade to the mush, the recipient instead has his legs snapped off at the shin. I found out that it is actually far, far worse.

Apparently a "cockney knees-up" is a small, very hot, very crowded, very pungent sausage party full of bouncing drunks necking London Pride while two old, sweaty, bearded dudes with mullets and muscle shirts play a piano and bass (poorly) while spouting unintelligible cack into a pair of microphones.

Dave from the Cockney duo - photo by Tara Vickers

According to the ticket, Chas & Dave did all their “hits” to the delight of the crowd, although I can’t really confirm that as I didn’t understand a blinking word. Well, except for the song that consists solely of the word “rabbit” repeated about 800 times.

It is probably at this point in the review that you, an English Chas & Dave lover are about ready to smash the screen and hunt me down for dissing such massive legends in this country. Lord knows I’m not doing my citizenship application any favours, so I better point out that I seemed to be the only one in the room not having a good time. 

Blindin keys Chas, blindin' - photo by Tara Vickers

The place was absolutely rammed and everyone else was going bananas. I was seriously out of my element. I felt like David Attenborough in the middle of the rain forest of the Amazon Basin, only instead of being surrounded by spitting three-toed sloths and spider monkeys, I was surrounded by people of all ages dressed up in 'Chassy' clobber, drinking, jumping and singing to their hearts content. One girl actually jumped on stage and kissed Dave on the mouth at the end of the show. Not bad, considering there were maybe six girls in the whole place.

I think Chas & Dave are like Chip butties, Only Fools and Horses and Marmite. If you’re not English, you’ll just never understand.

Chas & Dave played at The Maze on Thursday 23 October 2008

Check out our photo gallery for this event

All photos courtesy of Tara Vickers (c)

Chas & Dave official website

CHAS N DAVE in Nottingham!