peter murphy - dingwalls - 5 august 2010

Better late than never I suppose. I've just found this review of Peter Murphy's show at Dingwalls in Camden which took place nearly six years ago. It was a terrific night so here goes...

 

 

Peter Murphy put on a very fine show, despite some technical problems which clearly annoyed him. 

 

Firstly the gig was moved at the last minute from the Electric Ballroom to Dingwalls, just up the road in Camden Market. Not entirely sure why, as both venues hold similar numbers – only around 500. But Dingwalls' stage is very small, and very low, only about knee height, and this meant that Peter and the band had very little room. Cables and equipment were everywhere! 

 

I got there just as the doors opened, about 7.30, and went straight up to the front. So there I was, centre stage, right at the front! Brilliant. 

 

Greenhaus came on first – not, as you might think, a sort of Eco version of Bauhaus, but a rather good indie band with a Japanese girl singer called Phoenix whose lovely vocals over shimmering swirly guitars made them reminiscent of a slightly heavier Cocteau Twins. The keyboard player looked like a Robert Smith clone and spent the entire set grinning happily to himself, whilst the other band members were ultra serious. Not a bad start. 

 

Then they spent a few minutes frantically unplugging stuff and dismantling equipment whilst Lettie and her electronics guy Mike began setting up for their set. The cramped stage was chaotic for a while as various leads were plugged in and out and techie people tested stuff. It seemed like the Dingwalls staff were unaware of what Lettie required – two mics, about ten different electronic gizmos on Mike’s table - all needing power. And it took quite a while to get everything working - I guess the late change of venue didn’t help. Consequently Lettie was somewhat flustered and frustrated when she began her set of very good keyboard and electronics-led quirky pop. Some new songs, plus some from her excellent album Age Of Solo. I’d really enjoyed her support set last time I saw Peter Murphy and although this time she wasn’t as happy on stage, it was still a solid half hour of very original pop. 

 

Then PM’s crew took over, speedily plugging in various guitars and taping down leads everywhere so no-one would fall over them. The audience were very patient – an odd mix of Goths, really done up to the nines, and people my age or older. 

 

And at 9.20 the Murph followed his band onto the little stage. They wore regulation black, PM in a blue jacket with a feathered collar. The loon. 

 

This what they played...

 

Low Room,

Raw Power,

Velocity Bird,

Disappearing,

Silent Hedges,

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything,

Lots of chat with the audience,

Subway,

The Prince And Old Lady Shade,

A Strange Kind Of Love / Bela,

Stigmata Martyr,

Dark Entries,

Uneven And Brittle.

Encore –

Cuts You Up,

Ziggy Stardust (abandoned),

Your Face.  

On the set list but not played were “Kick In The Eye” and “She’s In Parties” and a couple more that I couldn’t make out.  

PM was in a very good mood at the start of the gig, but after the lighting was messed up during “Strange Kind Of Love” he seemed to get rather annoyed and so a couple of encore tracks were dropped and his performance changed a bit. 

 

“Low Room” was a cracking opener, with PM leaning on his guitar player, Mark Gemini Thwaite, throughout – goodness knows how Mark was able to play. Then with a grin Murphy shouted ‘A sandwich short of a picnic, am I?’ – a clear reference to Brendan Perry’s recent comments – before the band played a blinding “Raw Power” and PM did some wild Iggy-style dancing. He also used the shoulder of the guy next to me as a foot rest as leaned out into the crowd. Interestingly as the song began a roadie nipped out with the song words written on a big piece of card and placed it under the mic stand. After this was a slight pause and people in the crowd started calling out – someone said ‘Come on Peter!’ and PM looked baffled. ‘I have just come on! If this (pointing to his feathers) doesn’t make an entrance I don’t know what does!’

 

New song “Velocity Bird” was great as always and “Disappearing” rocked – hard – as PM decided to lean on the drummer, Nick Lucero, this time, and then grab spare drum sticks to whack the cymbals (not always in time it must be said…) A quick change of guitars for a couple of acoustic Bauhaus numbers, which went down very well with the old Goths. “Silent Hedges” was especially good.

 

Then a pause as PM chatted merrily away to people he’d spotted in the audience. He brought a girl from the front row up onto the stage and introduced her as someone who keeps contacting him via Facebook. He seemed genuinely pleased to finally meet her, though she seemed somewhat overwhelmed. It was all rather sweet actually. PM preened himself in his feathers and said something like ‘it takes a lot of effort to look this gorgeous!’ His self mockery throughout the show was extremely funny and showed what a terrific sense of humour he had.

 

A keyboard was plonked in front of PM and a guest violin player joined them for a terrific “Subway”. Best song of the night I reckon. And I shook his hand at the end of it!

 

My favourite new song “The Prince And Old Lady Shade” followed, nice and chunky on the guitars, then a lovely version of “A Strange Kind Of Love” with that pretty keyboard melody beautifully played on the bass by Jeff Schartoff.

 

PM has taken to singing “Bela” over the last part of "ASKOL" and was just going into the “Bela” part when his ‘Bela’ light didn’t switch on. This is a spotlight from the floor of the stage that shines up under his chin and makes him look all spooky – he called out ‘Where’s my f…… Bela light?’ as the band vamped over the "ASKOL" music and then a couple of big spotlights flooded the stage. ‘Well, that’s killed the moment,’ moaned Peter and he stopped the band playing. Then fiercely strumming his acoustic Murphy said he would keep hammering out the same bit until they got the lighting right - ‘this is the seventh show, you should know what you are doing by now!’ he shouted to the lighting people.

The spooky light eventually worked and he intoned a very cross version of “Bela”.

Then he grabbed a spare electric guitar and started getting all sorts of hideous noise and feedback from it as the band launched into “Stigmata Martyr”. PM does usually play the noisy parts of this track on stage anyway, but I got the impression, from the faces of the band, that he was making WAY more noise than usual. It was deafening, as was a pounding “Dark Entries”. I loved it!

The main set finished with powerful new track “Uneven And Brittle” but it didn’t work terribly well following “Dark Entries” – but to be honest, what could follow “Dark Entries”?? 

 

“She’s In Parties” should have been part of the encore but PM chose to play “Cuts You Up” instead – a very good version and PM’s mood seemed to have lightened again, but halfway through the first verse of “Ziggy” he stopped, saying that the guitar was out of tune. Mark Gemini Thwaite looked bemused and tentatively strummed a few chords that demonstrated that he was in tune, but Peter had already moved on, thanking the band who now left and reintroducing the violin player from earlier. Accompanied only by a prerecorded backing track, and the seriously haunting violin, PM sang an astonishing “Your Face” which silenced everyone who was still calling for “Ziggy”. He stalked around the small stage throwing those haughty stares and dramatic poses he does so well, amazingly powerful singing, a stunning performance. Then with a big smile he sincerely thanked us all for coming and off he went. 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the show, despite the limitations of the venue and PM’s evident irritation halfway through. I think he enjoyed it too, in a slightly perverse way. I would say that the show he did at the IndigO2 in 2009 was probably better, the sound certainly was, but it was terrific to see Peter up so close, right in front of me. It’s a shame that these gigs are promoted so badly – I can’t believe that only 500 people in the whole South East want to see Peter Murphy – he puts on a really great show, the band are hot, the songs are brilliant, yet he can only get crowds of 500 or so.

television - brixton electric 12 june 2016

Television are not a prolific band. Not at all.

Formed in 1974 Television originally comprised of Tom Verlaine on guitar and vocals, Richard Lloyd on guitar, Billy Ficca on drums, and Richard Hell on bass. Hell left after a couple of years and was replaced with the dependable Fred Smith on bass. After being a mainstay of the New York club scene, specifically CBGBs along with Blondie, Ramones, Talking Heads and others, they eventually recorded their debut in 1977. Marquee Moon was instantly acclaimed as a classic New York album. The follow up in 1978 was the criminally under appreciated Adventure, which refined and expanded Marquee Moon's taut tension. But Television split soon afterwards with Verlaine issuing a series of excellent solo albums. Without any fanfare at all, 1992 saw a third album, the unimaginatively titled Television. This was basically the perfect Television sound condensed into 10 shortish songs, almost like miniatures. Since then the band has issued just one new song, an instrumental on a compilation about five years ago.

Over the past 24 years they have sporadically played live, and at some of the gigs ten years ago almost half the set was made up of new songs. Things looked promising for a fourth album, but then in 2007 Richard Lloyd left. He was quickly replaced with Verlaine's long time guitar partner Jimmy Rip, so the change hasn't really caused too many problems when playing live, but it does seem to have halted all the momentum in the new tracks. Currently the band is playing most or all of Marquee Moon and just a handful or other songs in their sets. Only one of which is a new piece - "Persia" has been gestating and mutating in concert for nearly 15 years and the current 20 minute plus version is full of sinuous guitar lines, satisfyingly chunky bass and Ficca at his most nimble, drumming everything in sight.

It's perhaps a little disappointing that the band's set lists have remained pretty static over the past four or five years. You'd think they could mix it up a little more, play a slightly more varied set sometimes - after all they have less than 30 recorded songs from which to choose, so it surely wouldn't be that hard to have most, or all, of them gig-ready.

Having said that, despite playing much the same set, Television rarely play songs the same way twice, so even if you witness consecutive gigs, you're actually going to experience something quite different each time.

The recent show at the Electric in Brixton was full, opening act Lail Arad was pretty solid (interesting songs, though perhaps overdoing the quirkiness a little too much) and the crowd was in a very good mood. Television ambled onto the stage at about ten past nine and Verlaine immediately started tuning his guitar. He's made this obsession into an art form, and his lengthy tuning breaks have become almost legendary. As he's fiddling and tweaking Billy Ficca started drumming, the sides of his drums, the stands, the skins, it's all percussion to Ficca - he's a wonderfully inventive and entertaining drummer to watch. Then with no warning the tuning becomes a song. "Prove It" was a cracking choice of opening tune - everyone singing along right from the start.

 

The band were perhaps not quite as tight as I've seen them previously, Verlaine seemingly a little distracted by some sound problems on stage, and this unusually resulted in a few songs sounding a little underwhelming - "Venus" for example, seemed a little half hearted. But then they'd deliver a track like "Torn Curtain" which was so full of passion and fire and crackling energy, or a stunningly delicate "Guiding Light" laced with Jimmy Rip's sterling soloing.  

 

Then you have "Persia", a tune which the band clearly enjoys playing, giving everyone chance to experiment and stretch out, and this begs the question - why only the one new tune? What has happened to all the other new pieces?

 

And of course, there is "Marquee Moon". It might seem obligatory for Television to play "MM" every set, but bloody hell this is a monster of a song. It is utterly enthralling, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck thrilling, every single time I hear it. The build up at the end of the middle section is one of the most exciting sections of music as you'll ever hear, and then it all tumbles down with that glorious cascading shimmering guitar. Stunning.  

 

The encore, "I'm Gonna Find You" was only ever going to be an anti-climax after "Marquee Moon". It's a decent enough song, but a poor choice on which to end the show I feel, as it's simply too slow, and not really interesting enough to warrant it's position as an encore track.

 

Anyway, even if Television were occasionally coasting, this band is still head and shoulders above most other bands. They seem to be enjoying themselves - lots of smiles between Verlaine and Rip - and can still more than deliver the goods. Long may they continue.

 

And, you never know, maybe one day that fourth album might get finished...