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Another great live review, via Cheek:
The band hit the stage around midnight: Matt and Eleanor, plus a drummer and another guitarist/keybist. If you ignore the Ramones-with-cutaway-bangs haircut (which is impossible), Eleanor even looks a bit like Patti Smith. They started out with the brilliant "Leaky Tunnel"("I fished my microphone out of Regents Canal…"), followed by wonderful renditions of "I'm Gonna Run" and "Asthma Attack" which approached near-hardcore speed and sound vastly different from the album versions. Most of the rest of Gallowsbird's Bark appeared in their set, as well as some other tracks that I couldn't identify. I particularly enjoyed "Don't Dance Her Down", "Inca Rag Name Game" (whose "mommy mommy mommy" refrain prompted a tender locket-kissing moment between Eleanor and Matt) and the poignant closer "Rub Alcohol Blues" ("soak up all that old rub alcohol / ease all the trouble off my mind my mind my mind…"). Lots of great scratchy guitar and retro keyb-organ noises tumbling out of Matt's sector of the stage. No encores.
And then there was Eleanor. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was gazing up at her with mouth agape from the moment she set down that 32-oz. Heineken near her mike stand. She is astonishingly beautiful: always wetting her lips with beer, never touching her retro haircut, strapping on a guitar, unstrapping her guitar, taking off her sweater, kissing her locket… And that word-spitting! Unlike the stony intelligence that Patti Smith used to convey with her eye sockets and doves-on-fingers and hairy armpits, Eleanor plays it coy and inverted. The authority she gives is that of the shy geek who will pummel you with wit and energy once you get up the courage to talk with her.
I should also mention Eleanor's eye-contact thing. She picks out people in the audience and gazes into their eyes deeply while singing – never missing a line either – and she's got the probing look down pat. Almost as if she's reading off a teleprompter in her cerebellum while feeling up your very soul, searching for new material. I was lucky to get The Stare at least five times, and an entire cosmos was created and destroyed in my brain every time. Obviously her schtick is supposed to be some sort of challenge: a staring contest of sorts. But it's still a nice way to fall in love with a rock'n'roll star.
I'm soooooo glad to hear that they play "Inca Rag" and "Rub Alcohol" live...I was worried that they didn't. |
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