Two-gig weekend - first up,
the Wave Pictures at the Crescent in York, accompanied by CrinklyLion and CrinklyCub the Elder (I mean we went to the gig together, they weren't the support act). I think CCtE enjoyed his first club gig (the venue is a former working men's club in the middle of York), though it was a very late night for him.
What a night it was. The two supports were excellent - first up, Chorusgirl, pretty much a power pop band reminiscent of 90s Britpop, but they had some good tunes, and they were a really tight band. Matching white t-shirts too - they should really look into giving it the full-on Rocket from the Crypt sharp suits-and-slicked-backed-hair look, then they'll go far.
Second support was the brilliant Tigercats, who put on a really freewheeling, joyous set. Can't say I'm sure about the vocalist, especially after listening to the records, but the band were great, and there were some great noises coming from stage right, where the guitarist I couldn't see was standing, and who later came on to join the Wave Pictures.
Tigercats were also noteworthy for their bouncing-labrador-puppy of a bassist and his amazing floppy hair, jigging away at stage left. This could also be seen later in the night, when I think the entire band were right upfront, dancing like loons to the Wave Pictures.
It's a point worth stressing - the Wave Pictures got a York crowd dancing
I don't think I've seen the band on finer form. All the bits that I love were there, the crisp sound, the luscious solos, there were no awkward moments at all, and it was fantastic. You can't beat seeing a rock n roll band at the top of their game.
Saturday was a different night, a jazz-folk-classical Indian fusion provided by
James Yorkston, John Thorne and Suhail Khan. Finding the venue (Fruit) was the first issue, it's buried away in all the renovation going on for Hull's city of culture 2017 moment. And there's a warehouse next door with the same name but better signs. We worked it out.
The music that's playing in a venue is always a good sign - the Crescent were playing the Television Personalities on Friday (though by the third time around, I thought they could have probably changed the CD), and Fruit was playing some really early Go-Betweens, of which I approved. They also had the most astonishing choice in beer - too much choice, really, and I commented to a couple of Tykes that if they were looking for the cheapest drink, it just wasn't there. They really need to put a sensible session ale on draft, rather than really nice-but-incredibly strong-and-expensive American imports. The weakest was about 5%.
I think CrinklyLion came down on the side of liking the support act, but I'm still broadly undecided. If you like performance cellists pushing the limits of celling, she may be your thing, and she was undoubtedly talented and wonderfully engaging inbetween playing, but it veered too much towards performing arts for me, and I struggled to keep a straight face during the first couple of numbers. I did nip out for a smoko, but you could still hear from outside, so I decided I may as well endure it from a comfy seat. Fruit has very comfy seats as well as two A4 sheets of beer choices. She could really play that cello, and very occasionally made it give out a wonderful noise, and she could sing, but I disagreed with her formal very formal vocal style, and mostly it was fucking about with the cello rather than letting it sing. When she did the throaty Marianne Faithfull impression, her vocals were far better. It was just lost on me, really.
Anyway. Bizarre as a jazz-folk-classical Indian fusion sounds, it not only works, but it's astonishingly powerful. They kicked off by not really kicking off, as we weren't sure where the tuning stopped and the performance started, but it became a great frenzy of noise. Yorkston gave us one of his rambling anecdotes (we heard the same one in Edinburgh, and CL pointed out that the urge to heckle "we've heard this before" or "your Selkirk accent was better" was almost overwhelming) and generally guided proceedings along, on the reasonable assumption that most of the audience (26 by his reckoning) had come to see him, and gave the other two lads space to play. Yorkston has a very self-deprecating air which is thoroughly unmerited, as he's a very fine guitarist* and sings wonderfully, but I think anyone onstage with Suhail Khan would feel like a clodfooted clown by comparison. He just sat there and brought the sound down from heaven.
Go and see it if you can, it's nowhere near as worthy middle-class as I've probably made it sound. Apart from the support.
http://yorkstonthornekhan.com*I think - I know nowt about the technicalmawatsits of playing music.
