Monster Magnet w/ Pilgrim Fathers and Nebula

Sapnu Fabrika, Riga, 13 November 2008

From the outside, it was hard to gauge the size of the Sapņu Fabrika (Dream Factory). I had a moment of trepidation before stepping through the doors (Please let there be more than fifteen people at this show) but once inside I felt better. There were two bars, a decent stage with crowd control corridor, and standing room for several hundred. Just how many were in attendance, I can’t say, but it was certainly a good crowd.

[Aside: Coat check was free. Which in a coldish country like Latvia is very fair. I wish there were opportunities to make an extra buck left unexploited in the U.K. – it’s just so tiring sometimes.]

The first band on were Pilgrim Fathers from Nottingham. They were clearly influenced by the kind of effects-heavy Hawkwind-y space rock that early Monster Magnet channelled before releasing their debut L.P. (see half hour jam on Tab E.P.), but something was amiss. Marisa didn’t like them from the get go: loud and indecipherable were her main complaints. She has since adopted “Pilgrim Fathers” as a short hand for “irredeemably bad”. My reaction wasn’t quite so negative, perhaps because I knew a bit more about where they were coming from, but still: the lead singer spent so much time hunch over his effects module that it the thought of throwing a shoe at him did cross my mind.

After the sacrificial lambs, we were treated to the best supporting set I’ve seen in a long while by Nebula. I actually own To The Center and may have a few other tracks from these Californians on some of my “stoner rock” compilation CDs back home, so the band were not exactly an unknown entity. But then if you asked me for another album title, I’d be struggling.

The band are actually doubling back after doing their own headline tour of Europe earlier in the year, and managed to lure the building crowd into a bopping mood. As with Pilgrim Fathers, however, their kind of music – in this case: tight, riff-driven, sludgy rock’n’roll – sounds dated now. The lyrics lack any sort of punch, and the band are a couple notches down on the charisma stakes to suggest they will ever find their way out of their Eastern European Tour purgatory and into the American alternative mainstream.

Still, there’s plenty worse things than being a great supporting act (I’m sure for a few audience members they outshone the headliners…).

But I was only in Riga for one band.

Before, during and after Monster Magnet’s performance, I thought a lot about one thing. And no, it was not Dave Wyndorf’s weight (I forgot about that halfway through the first song… though not permanently).

It was the set list.

I own all of Monster Magnet’s albums, but wouldn’t call myself a diehard fan anymore. When I heard that the band were playing ‘Best Of’ shows this time around and ignoring their newer material, my first reaction was: cool. I would get to see the songs that made me a diehard fan.

But just what would a best of set list be like? Monster Magnet have released two greatest hits collections: both were misnomers (only ‘Space Lord’ could be called a hit); both were money-making ventures by record labels and opposed by the band in some way; neither really captured the best of Monster Magnet.

Then there was the difference between what the band would consider a best of and an Eastern European audience would expect.

All I knew was that there were certain songs, if I cast my mind back five or six years to when Monster Magnet loomed large on my musical tastes, that I would go ga-ga to see live. Such a list began with ‘Spine of God’ and ‘Cage Around The Sun’, followed by a trio of album starters from the mid-late 90s: ‘Dopes To Infinity’ (from the album of the same name), ‘Crop Circle’ (from Powertrip) and ‘Melt’ (from God Says No).

I was earworming ‘Dopes’ for three days as I walked around Riga (and Sigulda, which was lovely, by-the-by) before catching the concert on our last night in the Baltics. I even said to Marisa before the show: they’re gonna play ‘Dopes To Infinity’ tonight and they’ll play it first.

And so they did.

In fact, the set of fourteen songs (ten plus a four song encore that stretched for 25+ minutes), included every one of the five songs I listed above in my best of / must see live list.

I was so fixated with what songs MM would play / were playing, I tried to take a snippet of video of each song as an aide memoir for when I got back to the hostel to ensure I got the set list straight for this review.

[It turns out this wasn’t necessary as I got one of the set lists used by the band after the show, which Jim Baglino (Bass) kindly signed... and most of my video snippets are pretty much indecipherable.]

The only time I felt the set list left something to be desired was when they followed up the epic ‘Third Alternative’ with ‘Zodiac Lung’. Dave sat on a speaker and almost crooned the lyrics, while Ed Mundell stood in the background providing the only instrumentation. It was clearly an attempt to provide light and shade, this being a quieter, more introspective interlude, but it wasn’t necessary: ‘Third Alternative’ had already light-and-shaded our socks off, and later on ‘Cage Around The Sun’ and ‘Spine of God’ did the same thing. In comparison, ‘Zodiac’ was a one trick pony. It was also the only time I wondered (worried) about what the locals thought of this song choice.

If mellowness and introspection were in order, why not ‘Ozium’, a song from the same record as ‘Zodiac Lung’ but with that space rock vibe that the Pilgrim Fathers tried (and failed) to hook into. For a best of show, that would have been the icing on my cake.

The other thing to note, and this isn’t really a complaint, is that there was nothing from 2007’s 4-Way Diablo. Which, in one respect, you can understand if the band is out to play a We May Never Tour Again So Here’s The Best In Our Bag of Tricks type of show, but then again, what’s up with the t-shirts on sale with the cover art of 4-Way Diablo on the front and on the back: “4-Way Diablo Winter 2008 European Tour”?

‘Little Bag of Gloom’ could have ably filled the role of ‘Zodiac Lung’, and surely one of ‘Slap In The Face’, ‘Solid Gold’ or ‘4-Way Diablo’ would stand up just as well as lesser known songs like ‘Twin Earth’ or ‘Radiation Day’?

See, I told you I’d thought a lot about the set list.

Still, I can conclusively say that this was the concert where I have sung along the most (yes, even more than the Tragically Hip). I was enjoying it so much I never got the chance to properly look around and see how many other people were singing along (though I got the impression that Powertrip-era songs were the ones that went down the best).

The band were tight and looked into it. The absolute highlight was the way Caivano, Baglino and Mundell hung back during the quiet parts of ‘Third Alternative’ and then came to the front of the stage in a wave and blew the speakers for the chorus (sounds gimmicky put into words, but it wasn’t).

Up until seeing MM live, I was never really sure about Ed Mundell, the lead guitarist. He always seemed a bit aloof in videos and photos, somehow at odds with the band’s image, though I could never fault his solos. But seeing him out watching the warm up acts (he actually ran off to find the sound engineer when Pilgrim Fathers were on stage waiting to start) and his demeanour on stage, it’s clear that Ed is a great guy who just isn’t that outgoing. His personality is refreshing to find in a band of this sort, and provides an indispensable foil to the excesses of Dave Wyndorf (hold that thought). And following my brief conversations with Jim Baglino and Phil Caivano after the show (basically: “Great show. I’m from New Zealand. Please like me”) I feel safe in saying they are genuinely nice people.

As for Dave, he didn’t emerge from backstage before or after the show, and I couldn’t help imagine him in some Jabba The Hutt repose. He still played the role of showman and Prophet of Teenage Fears and Desire well during the show, but he also spent a lot of non-singing time with his back to the audience, recovering.

Because the guy is out of shape.

And his dress sense (unzipped back hoodie, baggy cargoes) doesn’t help appearances… or the sweat situation.

And when he stands with his back to the crowd, you can see his bald spot.

And I have nothing but admiration for the show he put on.

Regardless of the fact he’s 52 years old and only two years removed from a near fatal drug overdose. Compare him to the noodler from Pilgrim Fathers, and you begin to understand why some people are made to be fallen stars and others can only dream of it.

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Rating: 9 guitars out of 10.

The Futureheads @ Liquid Room, Edinburgh

The Futureheads, w/ The Dials, The Ads, 2 March 08

The Liquid Room was already pretty crowded when the Dials, a young power-pop trio from Edinburgh, started. Okay, so it doesn’t take a lot to crowd the Liquid Room, but it was a Sunday night.

As the first of two opening bands, The Dials did a good job. I’m listening to their songs on myspace now, and I have to say, they sounded better live. Still a long way to go, but they’re young. Give ‘em time.

Next up were The Ads from Glasgow. There was something off with the mix (someone behind me said the bass was too loud, but I’m not sure). Even so, they have some songs, those boys. The highlight was a new song which may or may not have been called ‘And so I know’, a.k.a. ‘the one where Kenny played the keyboard.’

[I hope the pen in Kenny’s shirt pocket was there because he writes a lot of things down, rather than a kind of nerd-rock affectation.]

If this were a Friday or a Saturday night, the gig thus far could have stood alone and we would have happily sprawled out onto the Cowgate for some serious drinking… but we weren’t out for a good time, we were out for The Futureheads.

Thankfully the two (Good time/Futureheads) are not mutually exclusive. They opened with ‘Decent Days and Nights’ and proceeded to mostly play songs off their first album (‘A to B’, ‘Carnival Kids’, ‘Man Ray’…) and tracks from their forthcoming, This is not the World (‘The Girl with the Radio Heart’, ‘Hard to Bear’, ‘This is not the World’…).

By my count, they only played two songs (‘Yes/No’ and ‘Skip to the end’) from 2006’s News and Tributes, which, admittedly, was more downbeat than their joyous debut, but still had some good tracks—‘Burnt’ and ‘Fallout’ would not have been out of place last night. I think Barry said it all when he introduced ‘Yes/No’: “This is a song from our second album. That is, the one none of you have heard.” It’s not so much that the crowd didn’t know it (they were singing along to ‘Area’ from an EP I’m sure would have sold less than their second LP) but that the band took News and Tributes’ cooler reception to heart.

Which brings us to their new songs, which are not simply a return to the angular guitars and four-part melodies of The Futureheads. The first two singles, ‘Broke Up The Times’ and ‘Beginning of the Twist’ are indicative of the harder, straighter punk-rock of the Futureheads circa 2008. They are good songs, but sandwiched by classics like ‘Hounds of Love’ (introduced as “a cover of Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’”), and ‘Meantime’ (a better live song than on record) they are just that notch below (despite being that notch louder).

It didn’t help that on ‘Beginning of the Twist’, which was being recorded for release as an mp3 download on March 8 (which I pre-ordered with my tickets), Barry’s guitar died and afterwards Jaff confessed to completely screwing the song up.

And these were not the gig’s only technical difficulties—the way the band handled them however, with a mix of humour and self-deprecation, only added to the show.

It wasn’t a perfect set, or a perfect set-list (for this audience member), but it was easily eight guitars out of ten. I know this is what I gave Nada Surf last week, and it’s true that I enjoyed the Futureheads more, but like I said the first time, you can’t play half a guitar. When I see a nine or ten guitar gig, you’ll know it was truly great.

Nada Surf w/. Rogue Wave

The Garage, Glasgow, 23 February 2008

I have a rule which states that if a band has a song rated 5-stars on my ipod, I have to do everything in my power to see them live if they come within a 100 mile radius. The responsible song in this case is the lead single from Nada Surf’s 2002’s Let Go, ‘The Way You Wear Your Head’.

I was not without reservation. Nada Surf first broke with ‘Popular’ (1996)… you know, the song where the guy reads out rules for teenage popularity during the verse. It was a good song, but a hard formula to follow and they would have been excused for becoming One Hit Wonders—which Elektra conspired to make them, dropping their follow-up album, ‘The Proximity Effect’ because they didn’t hear another ‘Popular’. They clearly weren’t listening hard enough, because ‘Amateur’ and ‘Bacardi’ are excellent, surprising, catchy songs. (I think ‘Bacardi’ is 4-stars on my iPod, but it’s pushing 5).

My reservations regarding their gig in 2008 come from the fact that Nada Surf have lived a second life since 2002. Let Go was more downbeat (‘The Way You Wear Your Head’ aside), more sappy lyrically (e.g. ‘Inside of Love’) and 2005’s The Weight Is A Gift took it one step further (e.g. ‘Always Love’) resulting in the appearance of their songs on The O.C. and One Tree Hill. Their latest album, Lucky, is very much in this O.C. groove: mellow, melodic, downbeat.

So I was a little worried a) about the age of the clientele at the Garage last night (the tickets read “Over 14s”) and b) about the song selection for the actual gig. I mean, they do the mellow, melodic, downbeat well, but it’s less fun to stand stock still in a room surrounded by people with asymmetrical haircuts also standing stock still than to jump around to rock songs—at which point it doesn’t matter what type of haircuts people have: rock is the ultimate leveller.

Before I could find out which Nada Surf I would be seeing, there was Rogue Wave, who were very ‘O.C. Nada Surf’. I actually listened to a few of their tracks on the net before the concert to decide how punctual I needed to be… and decided there was no rush to get to Glasgow for the start of their set. But we caught most of their set anyway, along with a diverse mix of ages and surprising lack of emo fashion statements.

The problem with Rogue Wave, I think, was typified by their bass player (left), who was wrapped in a leather jacket with a big scarf over that. It can’t have been that cold up there (based on how much Matthew Caws was sweating an hour later), but he seemed to be on another planet: the least funky bass player I’ve ever seen. Contrasting with this comatose figure was the guitar tech (right) who also played all the extra parts that Studio Bands put into their songs which require extra hands to pull of live (lap steel, four different guitar tunings in one song…). This fifth member was tattooed, bearded and graying, and must have been 15 years older than the rest of the band, but he clearly loved his job. I don’t doubt Rogue Wave love the music they produce (in the studio?) and I know it’s hard being an opening band in any circumstance, but when your guitar tech is the only one sending the right vibe, something’s wrong.

Their lacking stage presence was further underlined with Nada Surf’s appearance. They are clearly a band who’ve found their groove and like what they’re doing. Unfortunately for me, this groove is the one that does not include ‘The Way You Wear Your Head’ et al. But hey, not so fast, they still have some good songs, and even the ‘Love’ songs worked well in an anthemic way. There was crowd participation (soul band two-stepping, ooh-ooh-ooohs, the cussing part in ‘Blankest Year’). And songs from the new album which had felt flat on the first couple of listens suddenly made sense live.

Somehow I’d missed the genius of ‘Weightless’ from the new album:

Behind every desire is another one
Waiting to be liberated when the first one’s sated

New light was also shone on ‘Ice On The Wing’, ‘See These Bones’ and ‘I Like What You Say’.

It wasn’t all new material though, and most of the highlights came from this older (but not oldest) material: ‘Blizzard of ‘77’, ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and the epic ‘Killian’s Red’. Oh, and the song that was stuck in my head the whole way back to Edinburgh: ‘What is Your Secret?’

They came on for multiple encores (my morning after memory is struggling to separate all the comings and goings and settle on two or three encores) was a bit contrived. Aside: an encore should be a treat, but I understand the lack of an encore would ruin most people’s nights, so a second encore must be the treat… We were a good crowd last night, but people were walking out the door when they came on for the last time… I’m glad they played all the songs they did, even working Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ into the last song, but they didn’t have to leave and return to get us going: we were there.

Considering they didn’t play the song that convinced me to outlay time and money to go to Glasgow to see them, the concert was not a disappointment. No regrets. Just good memories.

The verdict: Eight Guitars out of Ten.

[Since this is the first time I’ve rated a concert here, I’ll explain that my scale is based on Englebert Humperdinck’s ‘Ten Guitars’, a bit of a favourite in New Zealand, frequently getting the Maori Strum treatment for an end of a party singalong. Because you can’t play half a guitar, ratings can only be in whole numbers.]