Pink Noise by FORK

Finnish quartet's camp covers are enormous fun

★★★★
music review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
Published 06 Aug 2011

To be clear: Pink Noise is not a show to be taken overly seriously. The new production from Finland's prodigious "rock a cappella" covers group is an orgy of sly-winking self-parody and a garish tribute to the spirit of glam – but despite its camp, or perhaps because of it, it's also immensely entertaining.

In their choice of songs to cover, FORK flit back and forth across the decades with abandon: Roxette's 'She's Got the Look' is pressed up against 'Hey Jude' in a medley that shouldn't work but does, while Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl' receives an even more raunchy reworking at the hands of a riding crop-wielding Mia Hafren.

Moreover, the band themselves are so hilariously overblown in their stage personas that it's hard not to be drawn in: “When we ask you if you are doing good, the answer is yes,” commands the sultry Hafren. “If you don't feel good – lie.”

The only real problem with Pink Noise is that FORK hit perhaps a little too close to the mark. It's actually quite easy to forget that their performance is entirely vocal: the aural fidelity to the original songs is so close that the viewer must consciously remind themselves of the technical feat they are witnessing in order to properly appreciate it. But by the time the almost inevitable and completely electrifying rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' rolls around, you're having too much fun to care.