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Poor Thomas Hansen. Though once a postman, the man who
calls himself St Thomas now has a better, but more
thankless job. Tonight, he played lovely songs, with
what he said in between numbers being both sweet and
hysterically funny.
At the end of his half-hour set, I
was struck by how great his songs had been, how much
he had improved since releasing his debut album I'm
Coming Home, how much he had made me
laugh. Yet ultimately his unassuming charm, wonderful
though it was, was completely eclipsed by what came
after.
Following the interval after St Thomas' set,
Lambchop's Tony Crow walks out on stage, sits down at
his piano and begins to play. Gradually, he is joined
by the twelve remaining members of the band. They
start to play, Kurt Wagner, sporting his trademark
baseball cap, clasping his guitar and huddling next to
the microphone.
Their first song, The Daily Growl,
the opening track from their latest album Is A
Woman, is upon us. The magic has begun.
When I was 14, I went to see REM, supported by Belly,
Spearhead and The Cranberries. It was my first gig, a
massive and unforgettable experience. I thought that
nothing could match it. But seeing Lambchop tonight
has done that, and more. For nearly two hours, the
whole of the Butterworth Hall in the Warwick Arts
Centre sat entranced. What we watched was something
truly special.
Since the breakthrough success of their album Nixon
in 2000, Lambchop have been on a different level to
everybody else. Their recently released follow-up, Is
A Woman, is a glorious album, yet seeing Lambchop
live is an even richer experience. While you might
expect a thirteen-piece band to be loud, it is quite
the opposite; instead, they use their numbers to
create intricate and subtly layered songs.
Having
played so much together, they have developed an
instinctive understanding of each other's playing that
is unmatched. They are not so much musicians in a
band, but all parts of one incredible living organism.
Someone once told me that seeing Jeff Buckley play
confirmed for him the existence of God. Well, for me,
tonight's gig is the closest I have ever come to
having a religious experience.
Playing a set that was
mostly made up of songs from the new album, Lambchop
filled every soul and every part of the hall with
their transcendent sound. The middle two songs of
their set, Catapillar and, from the Nixon album,
You Masculine You, showed the band at their very
best. The two biggest songs they played, on 'You
Masculine You Wagner howls as his band create a
thunderous sound, music entirely fuelled by passion,
while Catapillar, which they followed this with, was
more restrained, but no less powerful.
Holy Nashville
zephyrs, they blew every person in the audience away.
In the seats directly front of me, a woman rested
her head gently on her husband's shoulder. I think
everybody felt that closeness, that something special
that only this band can create. It's something to do
with the ethereal beauty of their music, the love they
so obviously put into every note. Tonight I ran out of
superlatives to describe Lambchop. Quite simply, there
are no words that can do justice to this band,
bringers of the gentle revolution.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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