Nevertheless, I was pretty excited about seeing them live, primarily by proxy as everyone ON THE PLANET seemed to think of this as the opportunity of a life time to finally see the BEST BAND EVER live again. Well, I must disappoint them then, I didn't agree. Okay, it was great, starting with the Clean, whom I must admit I've never heard of before. But as people got even more excited about this little London residency when they were announced as one of the support acts (though I must admit that Broken Social Scene caused even more of a riot), I just let myself be dragged along in all the preconcertal bliss. Seeing them live was... alright. They certainly are a threesome of some very talented musicians, but no more than that - though they did appear to have at least one fan who went completely mental when they played what appeared to be their biggest 'hit'.
For me, it's easy to point out the best moment of the evening: 'Frontwards', which is truly the best Los Campesinos! cover I've ever heard. And yes, for just a second I actually did think it was a LC! cover. Silly me. What strikes me most about the rest of the evening, is the lack of enthusiasm in the audience. Sure, there's a small group of fanatics jumping on the front rows, but they're just a very small group in an immense venue like Brixton Academy. And also, they're just jumping, no moshpits or anything else that I'm almost used to happening at every single gig I happen to attend in London. Most people just stand there, with a beer in one hand, like their reminiscing good times. And they might well be, as Pavement's days of fame are now well in the past, as will be the days when their fans used to attend each gig with an attitude that secured at least some mayhem. Or they bought their tickets for the same reason I did when the fourth date of their little residency was announced, thinking: "Oh, well, I might just as well buy a ticket then."
On the day of this performance, the Guardian published an article in which they mockingly named Miss Newsom 'Olde Spice' (as opposed to Arty Spice for Lady Gaga...). I'll let you decided how relevant it is today to keep on handing out Spice Girl-denominators to all female performers, but just this once, The Guardian couldn't have been more spot on. While some may have a slightly Disneyfied view of Newsom , she has got a lot more Grimm brothers spunk to her than you might expect. Although her mere presence is enchanting, it starts to get really interesting when she opens her mouth. That conversing with an audience can be real addition to a performance is more than proven tonight, even though the performance itself is of course even more heavenly.
A downside to every Joanna Newsom performance must be the inability to create a setlist that includes all 'hits' as most of her songs on her three albums easily reach the ten minute mark, resulting in a lack of both 'Emily' and 'Peach, Plum, Pear'. Unforgivable in my opinion, even though her rendition of 'Monkey & Bear' is sublime even without an entire string section, and ''81' and 'Good Intentions Paving Company' might as well be the best new tracks I have heard this entire year. All that's left is to buy a ticket for her show in Amsterdam and hope for the best.
Cold Cave/Factory Floor @ Cargo Every time someone mentions something about Cold Cave, I'm inclined to brag about the fact that I've seen them when Caralee McElroy was still part of the band. That one time, they just seemed to be more of a band than a Wesley Eisold show. Not I don't like the Wesley Eisold show, I even quite enjoy it, it just seems that the others don't really have a function other than provide entertainment in the way that each of them seem to manage to move to a different rhythm of the same song.
The same might be true for Factory Floor: they're just there to fill the stage for half an hour or so. I can't tell how long they've been on there, as I have the faint idea that they played only on song, though others tried to ascertain me of the fact that they could recognise separate entities in the wall of noise created by the threesome. Well, might I congratulate you with that capability then?
As always, Cold Cave create an even more impressive wall of noise (thank heavens for earplugs!), but this time it is a very melodic one. Last year's Love Comes Close was one of my favourite albums, and still regularly finds its way into my Last.FM stats. The amount of people dancing or even moving at Cold Cave gigs seems to decline however, as has the average duration of a set. Within 40 minutes Cold Cave have finished their setlist, leaving me feeling rather bereaved after having paid £13 to see them. Yeah, okay, they did feature their entire album, but what about Cremations for instance? Or maybe something new? They sure seem to have a lot more of a back catalogue if you visit their merchandise stand (they even have cassette tapes!), so why do they seem to have so much trouble creating a decent set?
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