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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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| The
Royal Festival Hall, London, September 1st 2009 |
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| Sometimes
gigs just don’t work out how you want them
to, and to be honest, you can’t always be
sure if it’s the fault of the band, the audience,
the venue, the sound engineers or, possibly, you.
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| So
I’m not particularly pointing the finger of
blame if I say that this gig, or what we saw of
it , was a huge disappointment. It was after all
a Tuesday night after a day of work and maybe I
just don’t have quite the energy I once had.
Or maybe the very same could be said of Magazine,
that fearsome post-punk creation of former Buzzcocks
front man Howard Devoto, who in his heyday managed
to combine a distinct intellect with a unique rock
aesthetic and a big dose of cadaverous menace, and
mix it into some quite stand-out albums. As far
as I’m concerned, not being a fan, Devoto
has been idling in the wilderness for years, but
this year he’s back. And by his side is a
pretty good reconstruction of the original band:
on drums, John
Doyle, who for a while retreated from music
into an advertising agency; keyboard player Dave
Formula, who has had a spell with Visage and
in production, and bass player Barry
Adamson, who amongst many accomplishments became
a Bad Seed post his time with the original Magazine.
Original guitarist John
McGeoch, who also played with Siouxsie Sioux
and her Banshees, and with John Lydon’s Public
Image Limited, sadly died in 2004; he’s replaced
by Noko,
key collaborator with Howard Devoto in his Luxuria
project. And Devoto? Well, like all of us, he’s
put on a few pounds but more tellingly, the years
appear have robbed him of that sense of threat and
disruptiveness that he always seemed to exude. He’s
more like a benign uncle than a threatening interloper,
looking distinctly like actor Donald Pleasance. |
| The
group reformed for a series of gigs earlier in the
year which were met with considerable acclaim, so
this should have been a good one. But for some reason,
the first half (we didn’t stay for the second)
was an uncomfortable and listless affair. The band
had chosen to play their 1980 Album, The Correct
Use of Soap, in its entirety; a strange choice perhaps
as at one time Devoto had almost disowned it as
a commercial sell-out (not that it succeeded in
terms of sales).It’s a curious collection
of songs, including an unlikely Sly and the Family
Stone cover (‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice
Elf Agin)’). Some, like the closing ‘A
song from under the floorboards’ are pretty
powerful, others seem to belong firmly to a former
age. |
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| Between
songs Devoto reads from a set of instructions, not
about using soap, but rather ‘Enjoying and
Caring for your Record Collection’. It’s
mildly amusing, but a tad contrived. You could just
tell that the band weren’t too happy, constantly
gesturing at the on-stage sound-desk, either on
their own behalf or that of their colleagues. The
sense of unease had been present in the audience
from the start, many clearly unused to the formalities
of the Royal Festival Hall. You could see people
visibly straining to get out of their seats. ‘Turn
up the fucking guitar’, shouts an interlocutor
from the back of the hall, leading to a series of
echoing pleas. A palpable sense of discontent filled
the hall. |
| So
at the interval we left for cocoa and A
Book at Bedtime. I read that the gig picked
up a little, with a ‘greatest hits’
second half, and the almost obligatory invitation
for the audience to leave their seats and head for
the stage, which like lemmings heading for the cliff-edge,
they apparently did. Not the best musical night
of the year, and I’m still pondering as to
whose fault it was. -
Nick Morgan |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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