God, I’ve blown my load in the last post. I’m sure the Suicide fans will be here to rip me a new one in due course. I’ve plaintively asked elsewhere for education about what makes them legendary. I suspect it’ll be along the lines of “they invented the genre”, in which case, all credit to them, but for crying out loud move on.
Grinderman weren’t too long in taking the stage after Suicide left. Long enough, though, for me to build up a head of rage at the blue-wigged toilet attendant who kept singing jingles while I took a piss. “With-out-soap-there-is-no-hope!” “Let’s get drunk and have some fun, have some fun, have some fun.” Singing the latter at some gigs is enough to earn you a stabbing. Not here, though, everyone here seems to be approaching the sunset of their youth or, in some cases, denying the fact outright. A chap who looked like a cross between Jonathan Ross and Peter Stringfellow wandered past mopping his brow extravagantly with a flock-pattered silk handkerchief. Another looks like he might quite have liked Suicide, an inoffensive-looking cybergoth type remarkable mostly for the fact that his arm has four large japanese kanji tattooed on it that, to the best of my abilities, crudely translate to “LITTLE MEAT BRIGHT SOUND”. I contemplate this for a while and decide definitely not to ask him what he thinks it means.
Ok, yes, Grinderman. That’s who we’re here for right? It’s Nick Cave, Warren Ellis (no, not THAT Warren Ellis, but they both have beards of wondrous voluptuity in whose shadow I feel somewhat emasculated.) Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos (the best beard of the lot, which could only be enhanced by his dramatic pink suit and drum kit). All four of them are alumni from the Bad Seeds but the music they perform for Grinderman possesses some considerable stylistic clear air from the last Bad Seeds outing from 2004. The band’s name should give you a clue to grinding, thrashy chaotic and quite glorious tunes hung together around Nick Cave’s always-superb lyrics and they’re performed here with the perfect amount of flair and confidence. Confidence, that is, except for Cave’s handling of his guitar at which he’s a confessed newbie. It’s almost charming to see him thrashing away and playing the guitar rock star knowing that he’s only recently learnt the instrument. He’s cautious with it sometimes but is clearly enjoying the iconography of throwing around a Fender and screaming into a microphone. Grinderman’s songs are frequently loud and brutal by their close and I’ve never before seen a crowd in front of Nick Cave actually moshing. The keystone track and first single, “No Pussy Blues” went down a storm whereas the other crowd-favourite “Go Tell the Women”, a song from the point of view of men everywhere giving up the ghost and leaving the world behind, got a far greater response from the women cheering along who seemed positively bouyant at the concept of a world free of men.
With only one album behind them, you would have been ignorant to expect too many songs from their debut tour. Steering well clear from dropping into covers or plundering the Seeds’ back catalogue, they play their last tune and Cave announces his thanks and then, “We’ll be back in a minute with Suicide!” I quickly weigh up whether he means the band or a sudden and bloody exit to their long careers. Given the alternatives, I’m not sure which held the greater appeal at that moment.
Ten minutes later, still wearing his absurd skiing goggles, the keyboardist comes onto the stage and kicks off a looping sample. He’s joined by Cave and the vocalist from Suicide both entering into a screaming contest in which they bellow staccato phrases through enough electronics to make a soprano sound like a dumper truck engine. The whole mess crescendos without doing anyone on stage any favours. The rest of Grinderman are ostensibly hammering their instruments in the background, noiselessly as far as we were concerned. I could even see Seasick Steve at the back, uselessly percussioning something near a microphone. The keyboard player by the end was mashing the keyboard with his fist and not looking. The second track was more of the same with unified yelling. My notes at this point read: “Are they shouting Supercunt together?” Before the end, Cave gives up and waves goodbye. Not deterred, Suicide carry on with the inaudible remainder of Grinderman gamely playing alongside until fade. Cups are being thrown onto the stage. They all leave. In the toilets, where I am regularly forced by virtue of tiny bladder and copious beer consumption, my neighbour pissee remarks, “What the fucking hell was that? What a load of bollocks!” and I’m afraid I have to agree.
[ Photo credit: Alison Covey: Flickr Stream. Source Photo]
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