"come, little lately, getcha shine on"
Twilight Singers, Islington Academy, 28.1.04
Let's get the hyperbole out of the way first: last night has to be one of the most enjoyable live shows I've ever seen. The signs were good: payday is always a good day, and I was relieved I could still get tickets, plus Nina had her HOTT new hair, rocking the Maggie G look (hey, she talks about Jake enough, I'm allowed that). Sure, so the weather outside was dreadful, making the walk up Pentonville Road a little too much like Artic exploration, but that just made it all the sweeter to arrive at the venue.
Greg Dulli's showmanship is well-known, but I'll confess to tiny reservations when he swaggered on several minutes after the rest of the band, with cigarette clamped in his mouth and drink in one hand, and said "Hello London. Did you miss me?" That's the kind of cockiness you really have to make sure you live up to. The first three songs were pretty great - a much more raucous 'Esta Noche' than the album version (using mainly Dulli's howl rather than his croon, which is a change from most of his recent recorded output come to think of it), 'Teenage Wristband' and 'Twilight Kid' - but I think it was around the point of their cover of 'A Love Supreme' that I really decided my god, Dulli's self-belief is really not unreasonable at all - in fact, it's part of what makes him such a good frontman.
'Decatur St' is probably the track from Blackberry Belle that benefitted the most in a live setting. Don't get me wrong, I like the recorded version, but on stage it clatters and roars even more so, the band really ripping into that chorus, everything shifted up a notch.
On the basis of 'King Only' and 'Love', I may need to buy the first Twilight Singers album. 'Love' got two airings - one began with Dulli singing the beginning of 'All You Need Is...', another came during the first encore, with Dulli alone behind the keyboard, and began with a partial cover of Outkast's 'Roses' - "y'all know this, right?" - which really brought out the viciousness of the song. So appropriate, too - it may make sense that Dulli digs The Love Below, but that track in particular could have been written for him.
Dulli's habit of inserting snippets of other songs into his own is both brilliant and maddening - maddening because I've been trying to figure out why the additional coda of "I think you're crazy, baby" on 'Crazy' was so familiar, and only just remembered that it's the chorus of Radiohead's 'Motion Picture Soundtrack'. Nice. (Another nice touch: 'Martin Eden' was dedicated to Dr David Kelly because, do you see?)
Best of all was the second encore. 'Uptown Again', annouced as a reference to this being Greg Dulli's first time in London for four years ("I'm not normally a sentimental man, but...") was a treat, but for the Twilight Singers to play 'Hey Ya!'*, tearing into it with the kind of gusto that can only come from loving it as much as, well, we all do, right? - that was something of a dream come true. Yeah, so I am a sentimental man, so sue me.
*After this, Dulli jokingly explained that while he loves Outkast, and would never accuse Andre 3000 of stealing from him, he wrote 'Hey Ya!' five years ago. Cue '66'. Now, it must be stressed that the two songs have very little common apart from inciting people to "shake it", but there is one little "oooh-ooooh" bit in '66' over which you can sing the chorus to 'Hey Ya!' and make it fit, as was thus demonstrated - yes, it was a joke, but a nice one.
Twilight Singers, Islington Academy, 28.1.04
Let's get the hyperbole out of the way first: last night has to be one of the most enjoyable live shows I've ever seen. The signs were good: payday is always a good day, and I was relieved I could still get tickets, plus Nina had her HOTT new hair, rocking the Maggie G look (hey, she talks about Jake enough, I'm allowed that). Sure, so the weather outside was dreadful, making the walk up Pentonville Road a little too much like Artic exploration, but that just made it all the sweeter to arrive at the venue.
Greg Dulli's showmanship is well-known, but I'll confess to tiny reservations when he swaggered on several minutes after the rest of the band, with cigarette clamped in his mouth and drink in one hand, and said "Hello London. Did you miss me?" That's the kind of cockiness you really have to make sure you live up to. The first three songs were pretty great - a much more raucous 'Esta Noche' than the album version (using mainly Dulli's howl rather than his croon, which is a change from most of his recent recorded output come to think of it), 'Teenage Wristband' and 'Twilight Kid' - but I think it was around the point of their cover of 'A Love Supreme' that I really decided my god, Dulli's self-belief is really not unreasonable at all - in fact, it's part of what makes him such a good frontman.
'Decatur St' is probably the track from Blackberry Belle that benefitted the most in a live setting. Don't get me wrong, I like the recorded version, but on stage it clatters and roars even more so, the band really ripping into that chorus, everything shifted up a notch.
On the basis of 'King Only' and 'Love', I may need to buy the first Twilight Singers album. 'Love' got two airings - one began with Dulli singing the beginning of 'All You Need Is...', another came during the first encore, with Dulli alone behind the keyboard, and began with a partial cover of Outkast's 'Roses' - "y'all know this, right?" - which really brought out the viciousness of the song. So appropriate, too - it may make sense that Dulli digs The Love Below, but that track in particular could have been written for him.
Dulli's habit of inserting snippets of other songs into his own is both brilliant and maddening - maddening because I've been trying to figure out why the additional coda of "I think you're crazy, baby" on 'Crazy' was so familiar, and only just remembered that it's the chorus of Radiohead's 'Motion Picture Soundtrack'. Nice. (Another nice touch: 'Martin Eden' was dedicated to Dr David Kelly because, do you see?)
Best of all was the second encore. 'Uptown Again', annouced as a reference to this being Greg Dulli's first time in London for four years ("I'm not normally a sentimental man, but...") was a treat, but for the Twilight Singers to play 'Hey Ya!'*, tearing into it with the kind of gusto that can only come from loving it as much as, well, we all do, right? - that was something of a dream come true. Yeah, so I am a sentimental man, so sue me.
*After this, Dulli jokingly explained that while he loves Outkast, and would never accuse Andre 3000 of stealing from him, he wrote 'Hey Ya!' five years ago. Cue '66'. Now, it must be stressed that the two songs have very little common apart from inciting people to "shake it", but there is one little "oooh-ooooh" bit in '66' over which you can sing the chorus to 'Hey Ya!' and make it fit, as was thus demonstrated - yes, it was a joke, but a nice one.
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