As I possibly alluded to in an earlier post, Yo La Tengo are one of those groups that are very difficult to categorise - "what sort of music is it"? Well, they kind of make jangly pop full of beautiful vocal harmonies, which is often buried below very beautiful dense guitar sounds. Something like that. But you are best having a listen yourself, as it is very difficult to describe music in words.
I don't think they tour the provinces very often, so I was very much looking forward to it. As usual, I had an extra ticket, and as usual, none of my "so called" friends could be bothered and/or had never heard of YLT. I ended up selling it to a tout for £5.00 - I have mixed views about touting online, but I think this "front of venue" type of activity gives you another chance to see a group that has been sold out for ages. I think touts play a very complex economic lottery with their market-making, but I would expect my ticket to have been sold for £25+ to the middle aged men who like this kind of music.
Anyway, Garry "Slippers" Bradbury met me at the venue (having purchased his ticket independently of me), and we first watched the very entertaining Euros Childs (ex of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) bash out his slightly shambolic brand of keyboard-led indie pop. His new album (Son of Euro Child) is currently available as a free download from his site - and is worth every penny. In fact, it is worth the tenner I handed over to him after the gig. We had an interesting discussion of the economics of making music available for free, and I was tickled to hear him say "economic model" in his broad Welsh accent.
The main event was fantastic. I am not particularly good at recalling names of songs, especially true of YLT material as their music often has a hypnotic quality that blends into a beautiful soundscape (see And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out). However, standout songs included If It's True, Here to Fall and the fantastic set closer You Can Have it All. I loved the way how they created such a racket with just 3 people on stage, though they are all clearly talented musicians as they regularly swapped between instruments.
The main singer, Ira Kaplan, said during the encore that they like to do a song by a band from the city they are playing at. As he couldn't think of any Manchester bands(I think he was joking!) he played I Wanna Be Your Lover by Bob Dylan - he chose this becasue it was one of the songs Dylan played when he first went electric at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1966. Right on cue, some wag from the audience shouted "Judas!". I laughed, anyway.
After the gig, I went to buy a t-shirt, and had a quick chat with Ira. I complimented him on his fabulous guitar playing, and said that now I had 4 lessons under my belt, I would soon give him a run for his money. Rather modestly, he said that he couldn't play guitar until AFTER he had been in Yo La Tengo for 2 years!
All in all, a great night out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would have loved to have gone but cried off due to a previous commitment - We were due to got to a fireworks display. Sadly the only projectile we experienced was Louis' vomit so we missed that as well.
ReplyDeleteJudging from the review it was either an intimate gig or are you just unrivalled in your ability to button hole lead singers?
Both leads made themselves available, and I can never resists having a chat. For once I resisted the temptation of bringing my camera, otherwise I woul have pressed them into having an intimate portrait taken with my arm around their respective shoulders.
ReplyDelete