"I've got unclean thoughts flying through my head..."

[rhythmaning]

An evening of nostalgia with Lloyd Cole. And pshtaku and f4f3.

It was very nostalgic: Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, and later just plain Lloyd Cole when he went solo, have been part of the soundtrack to my life for, oh, twenty two years; actually, twenty two years and a month, since I saw them play at Coasters (a roller disco in Tollcross. Really), before the release of Rattlesnakes (on of the best ever debut LPs ever. Really). They quickly became one of the bands that I listen to most, and I can still sing the lyrics to most of their songs; and their songs evoke particular emotions – different girls, usually (and Louise didn’t have perfect skin; she had a scar on her arm); these songs carried me through good and bad times.

I haven’t kept up to date with Coles more recent releases – they seem to mine a rather downbeat mood (and if I want that, I can always play Easy Pieces – not a happy album for me, that one).

He is an arch songsmith – his clever, knowing and self-referential lyrics being central to the mood, but irritating most people: he was quickly labelled as “student rock” (that’s what they called indie twenty years ago).

He played Edinburgh a few years ago – I didn’t go, not being into his later stuff so much – and the Commotions played Glasgow Barrowlands as part of a four date reunion tour in 2004 (now that would have been a hell of a gig – I tried to get tickets but it had sold out by the time I was aware of it!). But his latest album has been well reviewed, and I have been playing his old recordings more frequently – they still hit the mark perfectly – so I thought I’d give the gig a go.

It was a wet evening: it was pouring with rain as I walked up the hill to the Queen’s Hall. I was early: I snuck into the venue before the doors had officially opened, and I am very glad that that didn’t stop the bar staff allowing me to buy a drink. As the doors opened, there was a stream of people coming in angrily expressing the same feelings that I had: “why do they put 7pm on the tickets if it doesn’t start till 8?” (The tickets said “doors open 7pm”; I am so out of practice with this pop gig lark I misinterpreted this code, as did a large number of other people.)

f4f3 and pshtaku turned up – they were late, having been stuck in foul weather on the Edinburgh bypass. pshtaku had managed to get a ticket beside mine and f4f3, which was very clever of either her or the box office staff. We sat and had a drink, sharing gossip, before going to see the support – a guy called Ben Taylor.

He has good pedigree – the son of Carly Simon and James Taylor – and he sang knowing witty songs – pretty good warm up for Lloyd Cole, then. He played barefoot, which seemed very 60s. I liked his songs – I happily listened – but it wasn’t really my kind of stuff: it lacked an edge.

Another drink in the interval (yay! for Belhaven Best) whilst pshtaku queued to buy Taylor’s four track EP (I bet she has already bought the soon-to-be-released CD – she was clearly smitten!).

It was pretty busy – the box office had told me they were nearly sold out when I got the tickets three weeks ago, so it should have been nigh on full (though there seemed to be quite a few empty seats around the hall) – and I had a very strong feeling that I would see someone I knew: the audience were very much of an age, a clear demographic who weren’t used to going out on a damp Wednesday night. It is the same when I visit London: that feeling that just around the corner – just down the escalator – is the face of a friend. (More often, it turns out to be the face of someone I would rather avoid.)

Lloyd Cole came on by himself: just him and an Apple iBook. Which he poked a few times until some rather pleasant, new agey ambient music came out. I expected him to pick up his guitar and the whole to flow together into a recognisable song, but it didn’t: after a few minutes, the music faded out. He poked the Apple a few more times, and the whole thing started again: a different – but similar – ambient sound. This went on for four or five ambient tunes.

I didn’t really get this. Indeed, I am not sure that I really get the use of computers (not synthesisers – computers playing a backing track) in live music. I have felt this ever since I saw New Order play (again, many years ago): they had a lot of backing tracks, and at one point the Stephen Morris stopped playing the drums at the end of a track – but the drums kept playing on the computer; and I couldn’t hear the difference. It just made me think that they might as well have just put all their instruments onto the computer, push a button and go down the pub. (Which is what I believe Kraftwerk used to do).

It certainly wasn’t as if Lloyd Cole was playing the Apple – he was pushing a few keys here and there. The creative bits were already in the machine, waiting to come out. It sounded nice, but as Lloyd acknowledged, it wasn’t what people wanted to see – “It’s OK,” he said, “you can see the guitars, it won’t be like this all night.”

But after fifteen minutes or so, he was joined on stage by former Commotion, Neil Clark, on electric guitar, and started a set which covered much of Cole’s career since I saw the Commotions play last. I didn’t recognise some of the tunes – taken from the recordings I don’t have, presumably – and they didn’t play many of my favourite tracks. (This didn’t surprise me: we would have been there most of the night, and had the whole of “Rattlesnakes”, “Mainstream” (bar one track), “Lloyd Cole” and much of “Bad Vibes” and “Don’t Get Weird On Me, Babe”.

Although they used the Apple to add some rhythmic texture and depth, they kept to the simpler, more gentle tunes – “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken” and “2CV” off Rattlesnakes, for instance. Bass and drums – f*ck it, the Commotions – would have added a lot for me: some of the faster, more raucous numbers would have added more dynamics to the evening (the Bo Diddley beat of “Forest Fire”, the sinister soul of “Downtown”, or the visceral viciousness of “Half Of Everything”, say). But this clearly wasn’t an evening when anyone was expected to dance – the hall was full of café-style tables; this was a seated-only gig.

It was easy to hear his words – I resisted singing along (though f4f3 didn’t!), and I was surprised that the audience generally seemed a bit restrained. Cole even had trouble getting people to sing along when he wanted them to, for the end of “Jennifer She Said”. A couple of times, he started a song only to stop it after a few bars, which came over a bit amateurish: he has been playing most of these songs for years, and this was the last night of a thirteen gig tour of Europe, so you would have thought he’d have got the tunes sorted by now.

But it was good – if somewhat emotional – to hear all these tunes again, in one go: a bit like hearing the last twenty years of my life flow by. Most of the songs are about the fallout from relationships, and the memories they evoke lurk close to the surface. There are many ghosts. (Ben Taylor had explained why songwriters prefer to write about bad times rather than good. Happiness doesn't produce creative highs.)

Cole played for about ninety minutes, and came back for a couple of encores.

And then we went back out into the rain. f4f3 very kindly gave me a lift home, in exchange for directions to the chip shop.

It was a good evening, but not brilliant; it raised demons. I’ll have to play the disks to perform a bit of an exorcism.

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Don't get weird on me, baby.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Too much of a good thing.

(This could go on all night!)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Well, All You Have to Do Is Crawl