Another London gig, another new venue ; Union Chapel in Islington,
beautiful place !!!
Its a converted church that doubles as a music venue in the evenings
and a place that serves food for the homeless during the day. I went
there last week to see Michael Nesmith (former "wooly hat wearing"
Monkee). It's looks like the passing of Davy Jones (former Monkees lead
singer) made him realize that he wasn't getting any younger and that he
should make the most of it while it lasted ! It was Nesmith's first solo
appearance in the UK since 1975 and he hadn't here since
the tour he did with the Monkees in 1997. The demand was so high for
tickets that the first show at Queen Elisabeth Hall sold out and another
one had to be added at Union Chapel.
I had read a short review of the Sunday night show at
QEH and I must admit it put me off a little. I was expecting the shows to be
just Nesmith and his 12 string but he was playing as a trio
with a bass player and a keyboardist. The reviewer also explained that
most tracks featured pre-recorded music played from different laptops.
Going to that extent and not bringing a drummer was a weird idea.
I made it to the venue just before 7pm and the queue
was already 150 meters long. The gig was due to start at 8pm and there
was no opening act. Nesmith and his two musicians started with a good
rendition of "Papa gene's blues" off the Monkees first album. The
song was followed by a long speech about the laptops and how they were
meant to be creating a sonic landscape that coupled with a short story
told before each tune would help create movies for the mind. I must
admit that by this point I was thinking, this guy is going to spend the
next hour and half ruining his back catalogue and I've spent 30 pounds
to see him do it...
And for the most part I was right. Lots of songs
figured odd backing drum tracks that didn't fit at all with the mood of
the song ("Tomorrow and me" from the "And the hits just kept on comin'"
album was one of the casualties). Some of them featured overblown string
and keyboard that burried the song impact ("Different Drum" was a prime
example of that). Some other songs that were played were simply not meant to be played in that kind of format ("Rio", "Cruisin"). As Nick
Lowe explained why he never played his hit "I love the sound of breaking
glass" during his shows : "it is a good record but it's not much of a
song". Not all was doom and gloom though, "Tapioca Tundra" from the
"Birds, Bees and Monkees" album was done pretty well and we got a really
good version of "Thanks for the ride" that featured the original
pedal-steel solo played by Red Rhodes on the record (played by the
laptops of course but put to a good use this time). The reviewer of
the Sunday night show at QEH said he found the short stories distracting. In
my opinion they were more superfluous than distracting.
The gig left me with the impression that the two
musicians were brought in at the eleventh hour because Nesmith wasn't
confident emough in his guitar playing (wrongly in my opinion). The bass
player has been playing with Nesmith since the mid-seventies but the
keyboard player seemed a bit lost sometimes and there were a few fluffy
notes. Playing to pre-recorded tapes just added pressure to a
line-up that hadn't enough time to rehearse. Even though you can praise
Nesmith for wanting to bring some freshness to his back catalogue, you
can't excuse him for ruining some of the songs in the process. I'm not
the only one who thinks that way guessing from the surprising lack of
web reviews for an artist who was playing two sold out shows in London.
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