Raven-haired, eyes closed, jaw working. Mark Lanegan takes the no nonsense approach to extremes. There’s no interaction with the crowd. No introducing his band (including Nick Oliveri on rhythm). A rock star whose needs and musts list is confined to a few towels and sixty cigarettes. Predictably, there’s little movement from him throughout the gig.
He shifts into his default position (tattooed hand surgically attached to the mic stand) as the band open with the simple heaviness of Sideways in Reverse. It sets the tone. All the songs tonight sound harder than the album tracks.
It’s a blurry start that drowns out the main reason people are there. But his voice soon warms. Four songs in and Lanegan finds sufficient gravel to make One Way Street, his world-weary ode to life, a highlight of the night (‘Oh the deafening roar remember that’s called a one way street/and you can’t get down without crying’). The knowing fatalism of When Your Number Isn’t Up (‘I stay close to this frozen border/So close I can hit it with a stone’) follows and it’s clear that Lanegan’s new material – unaided by song writing partners – achieves the greatest clarity of his solo career.
Hit the City doesn’t suffer from Polly Jane’s absence. A delicate version of I’ll Take Care of You is enhanced by sporadic messy licks provides a welcome reprieve to the wall of noise. But in general, the subtle discordance on ‘Bubblegum’ (2004) is dropped in favour of crazed, swirling guitar noise. An extended version of Gospel Plough in the encore provides the only Screaming Trees tune. Lanegan disappears leaving his band to jam. Nobody seriously expects him to return.
His songs of loss and intoxication bring in the ‘discerning’ rock fans (i.e. male, slightly depressed, not young). The lack of gimmickry reduces the Strokes wannabe count.
A genuinely melancholy rock idol and he’s loved for it. But is it a happy tour bus?
Some
of these Swedish chaps do a great job of sounding American. Lead singer Nicke
Borg sounds like Brett Michael's filtered through a TV evangelist's voice box.
With all that public transport running on time being Swedish can't do much for your punk credentials. Still our chums up north produce some decent bands. Even some without death make up.
Borg's rock patter stretches credulity when he boasts he's never been to school. Strange assertion given that they formed the band while they were at school. But then the Backyard Babies slavishly tow the bad boy rock line even if that means a few porky pies. They look distinctive enough to get away with it. Most notably, drummer Peder Carlsson's resplendently bushy lamb chops.
A few words work wonders on this
crowd. Fifteen minutes in guitarist Dregan asks 'You guys wanna hear a
heavy one?' Where was the light one? What he actually means is a
slow, heavy one that proved to be the only variation in pace of the
evening. For the most part it's supercharged punk all the way. The
band aren't fatigued by the being at the back-end of a European
tour. Songs like Making Enemies is Good and Powderhead provide musical
high points as well as laying down their punk with lipstick attitude.
They've been compared to Guns n
Roses and Motley Crue. True, in terms of the look, their music opts for
straight ahead punk beats rather than sleazy groove. Anyone with affection
for that era will think they look hip. There are the tattoos of
course. Borg is blessed with that gift to the few: looking cool in a
bandana.
The skull and cross bones drape used as the backdrop presents the biggest challenge to the bands credibility. With all the aged rock imagery on stage it's difficult to take it seriously. But when a more marketable 'modern' or nu-metal approach is the answer, they may as well carry on as they are.
It was hot by the time Jesse Malin walked on to stage. Joseph's Well attained that thing it rarely achieves: a full house.
On the road again, still touring to promote his album The Heat, Jesse is not a picture of health. That forehead-hugging hair crowns a ghostly, pale face. The late nights must take their toll but he still can't seem to leave us alone.
It's a stripped down line-up. It's just Malin with his acoustic and Christine Smith with piano, pout and tie. For a musician whose songs are so personal this more intimate format works well. The music's quality is clear despite the relative lack of electrification and stripping away the slick production of 'The Heat', the second album's songwriting reveals itself as superior to the first.
A good song should sound great if it's played in its simplest form. Malin himself admits that its great to get back and play the songs how they were initially written. The pared-down approach brings a fresh clarity to Since You're in Love. During Wendy, Smith takes the album's electric riff and makes it her own. She has chance to linger on the worthy opening phrases of Arrested and make a few organ stabs during Brooklyn. It's a show where particularly the more emotional songs come through and shine.
It's now expected that Jesse indulges his fans with a bit of banter. He's like the old friend who always tells the same jokes but just gets funnier and funnier. So, the Barbara Streisand anecdote is on hand again as well as musings about Sinatra's drinking habits. Songwriter and funnyman, Malin always makes it all look so natural but given his chattiness and good humour, it sometimes jars that most of his lyrics deal with melancholy, loss and other grievances. It's an inconsistency we're happy to forgive but who would have thought a man who wrote an album called 'The Fine Art of Self-Destruction' could be such a nice man.
Some covers close the show. 'Death or Glory' and 'Oliver's Army' are live mainstays but Graham Parker's 'Three Martini Lunch' made a late surprise appearance too. Judging by Malin's wan appearance it's probably a joke-to-self.
There's a bit of back slapping going on at this gig: two Leeds bands on the bill who are actually good.
A sturdy set from Londerners Hard-fi is an acceptable start. Shouty 1,2,3,4 rock with them all going for it vocally and as most people can relate to songs about being skint Cash Machine provides an early highlight.
The local talent takes the stage. The Cribbs are from Wakefield and have hair all the exact same length (just below the ears). They have a drummer who behaves like Animal from the Muppet Show and a luminous orange bass guitar. It's good punky fare but when will they learn that an injection of melody is the only way to lift average bands to better things. Still, it's a celebratory mood that sees vocalist Ryan crack out the champagne in honour of the all-conquering headliners. He almost loses his head in the process. Novice.
Your reviewer was in Los Angeles over the Christmas period. Driving around it was great to listen to the two great radio stations there: K-Rock and Indie 103.1. Even better was the fact that a Leeds band was being played every half hour. That band was the Kaiser Chiefs, the song I Predict a Riot. Whether our American friends understand the word lairy or the socio-cultural relevance of the line ‘a man in a tracksuit attacks me’ is beside the point.
Some may remember the KCs when they were called Runston Parva (later just Parva). Back then their sound was not quite so playful, not so bouncy. They sounded a bit like Kula Shaker. They had not injected those now ubiquitous na na na na na's. They had not decided to utilise the screaming crescendos comparable to the build up to the last chorus of Twist and Shout or - pushing it – Nelly the Elephant by the Toy Dolls (come on, you love that one). It's a good scam but they do flog it to death. It's heard in at least four songs tonight.
Both supports had pointed out that this was a home coming for the KCs. Bizarrely, the crowd made a collective decision to greet the band with a chant of We are Leeds and the slightly easier to learn Leeds, Leeds, Leeds more often heard at Elland Road. How the KCs feel about this they do not reveal. Whatever, it's a moment of solidarity for a town that hasn't had much of a rocking trumpet to blow.
The singles are the highlights although the material from Employment jostles for the catchiness crown. I Predict a Riot is their – Clash-inspired - best song or at least the most immediate, the most infectious. Oh My God gets the crowd moving with its stompy chorus. Their look and sound is, of course, derivative but they seem completely at ease with it. Everything they do has a smirk.
They are a band of jokey vowel pronunciation and a thousand 'la la la's'. It's exuberant and immediate. Instant gratification is the KCs' thing and they do it admirably.
There are times when Romeo Stoddard can’t help himself from smiling. The smile of someone who writes songs people love. With every roar of approval Stoddard et al can barely suppress their collective glee at producing such great music.
The Magic Numbers have succeeded in creating a buzz amongst knowing music fans. Everyone seems to know all the tunes on offer without having heard an album.
Visually, they’ve been compared to an overweight death metal band. Musically, they’ve been held up against the songwriting of Dylan, the harmonies of the Mamas and Papas with the quirkiness of Beck. Whatever, the reality is an interesting cocktail.
Opener The Mule sets the standard for the craftsmanship on offer. Packed with hooks, Stoddard knows how to mix up a song, take away its pulse, bring it back again and only then deliver the chorus that you loved the first time. It’s a winning formula that’s seen again in songs like I See You, You See Me and Love Me Like You that displays the much praised harmonies of Michelle and Angela. The songs never labour one idea and hence the music doesn’t require a prior knowledge. The quality is so obvious, the immediacy so tangible.
Stoddard is no slouch on guitar either. No bar chord wonder, he knows how to place a jazz chord and when to ease of and just send a couple of notes through his vintage Gibson amp and sibling Michelle refuses to plonk away at the root.
The Numbers were stomped back on for a surprisingly short encore. Stoddard politely asks if he can finish with a quiet one before the Numbers deliver the delicately poignant version of Wheels on Fire.
It’s a great time to see the Numbers live. They are still relatively unknown, completely unjaded by touring, clearly loving what they do. Go see them before fame gets to them and they all go on a diet.
Josh
Ritter hardly seems to spend any time in his homeland. His continuing
popularity in Ireland
has great benefits for music fans in mainland UK.
He comes to see us too.
It’s a newly bearded Ritter who takes the stage and immediately our friend from Idaho flashes that big, kindly smile of his. The grin is a constant with Ritter. He loves his job. More on the beard later.
With two strong albums slung over his shoulder – and a third on the way – there’s a perfect blend of old and new. His low-tech band pumps up favourite tracks like Harrisburg and Come And Find Me. Other Side displays his ability to twist folksy/country convention intelligently (I’m still waiting for the whisky to whisk me away/I’m still waiting for the ashtray to lead me astray’). And although You Don’t Make it Easy Babe forces warmly familiar thoughts of Dylan, Ritter still has a unique sound.
He can rock it up too. The crowd buzz as the chorus of Hello Starling swells. They vicariously lap up the nostalgia of Me and Jiggs. If the bass line in The Golden Age Of Radio doesn’t have the distinctive drive as the album track nobody is complaining.
But some wag isn’t prepared to give due attention. He starts to heckle, shouting ‘Stop playing your middle class songs!’. Ritter didn’t really know what to say to something so strangely insulting. Looking a little hurt, Ritter still risks a quiet tune, killing the lights to perform the transcendent ballad Wings in complete darkness. (The wag having been silenced by a brief dialogue with a six foot five Ritter fan).
Its not that Ritter doesn’t like banter. He tells us of tetanus jabs in Nottingham, the confusion he found inside his first Kinder egg. He tells us he’s growing his beard until Bush leaves office (and he started growing it four years ago…). He suggests a sleepover arrangement whereby we take Dubya one night a week just to give the U.S. a rest. The crowd cherish these moments.
For an encore, it’s a supremely confident Ritter who unplugs completely, moves from the mic and sings the tune some had been shouting for all night. California with its lyric: ‘It’s alright, I’ll be back/and I’ll bring the sun to shine/in your eyes, on your shoulders’ makes a few weak at the knees. The rest marvel in spellbound silence.
Ritter
once said ‘There’s no shame in hoping a song will be remembered long after
you’re gone’. He’ll get his wish.
