| Dave MacRaild Bristol Fleece and Firkin 13/11/97 & London Union Chapel Islington 21/11/97 |
Sparklehorse in Bristol was unique - this band have previously only played second fiddle to
some higher order (Radiohead, Mazzy Star, Tindersticks) or stuck to their core fan base in
London. i.e. Sparklehorse will always have a big audience in London - how will they fair in
the 'Styx' of UK?
Well, not too bad. They were much more relaxed in the smaller venue that results from moving into the mainstream. Linkous was more communicative in Bristol than anytime I've seem him before. Some key comments were: (Referring to touring band) 'These guys are all from New York - I'm the only redneck here.' Which brings me to my first point - What happened to the old touring band????? This band were obviously session artists; a bit giggly and in places almost mocking of Mark (girl guitarist/cellist in London). Also, the new bass player is a bit on the hyper side (very unsparklehorse). At the end of the day they sounded good but not *as* good as they can. Generally I thought they'd lost a lot since the last two gigs, but hey that's progress... Record company a-pushin I expect. Don't get me wrong - they were still awesome. Or, maybe, Mark is happier now and that is reflected in the music - I just got used to him being sad. The stuff that makes Sparklehorse special live was also missing - the dictaphone has been replaced by a sampler that the drummer presses the key for ('cept he fucked it up in Bristol). There was some salvation in London though, when Mark brought out the pull-string kiddies toy which gave some atmosphere to the closing moments of Spirit Ditch. Hey don't want to sound too negative - Mark is always blinding. Specially London where the sound (despite his complaints) was superb. |
| Matt Robinson London Union Chapel Islington 21/11/97 |
Went to the Sparklehorse gig last Friday - and very good
it was too. In terms of setting and atmosphere this is an excellent venue
for Sparklehorse. Union Chapel is - as the name suggests - a Church and
the stage is in front of the altar with arches, columns and a gothic crypt
of some sort. Add some dry ice and coloured light and you have a
strange other worldly setting perfect for the likes of "Spirit Ditch".
On the downside it must be nightmare for the sound engineer (high ceilings
and all that).
The first time I saw Sparklehorse Mark was in a wheelchair, the second time he walked on stage but played sitting down, but this time he seemed fully recovered from his accident. The other thing that had changed since I last saw them (which was touring with Mazzy Star last year) was a new band member (a woman) who alternates between lead guitar and cello (cool). Oh and Mark has had his hair cut a lot shorter.
I managed to scrounge a play list of the guy at the mixing
desk, as follows:
Some of these were new to me (although I don't have all the singles). "All Night Home" was definitely new in fact it was the first live performance ever according to the sound man. One of the new songs (or at least the ones I'd not heard before) was a rocky, almost thrashy, track but the majority were slower acoustic songs. They stood up well against old favourites so I guess that means they are
pretty good.
|
| Jessica Bahlman Richmond, VA Alley Katz 17/7/98 |
I was brave enough on Friday to venture down to Shokoe
Bottom all by myself in order to catch Sparklehorse (and Spike the Dog)
in a show that was billed as Sparklehorse's "only US date before their
European tour." (don't ask why I couldn't get any friends to go, it's just
one of those long stories where fate conspires against you...)
Anyway, I got there at 9pm and paid $4 for parking (since I can't parallel park at all). I walked over to Alley Katz (2 blocks from the car) and when I got there I saw doors opened at 9:30, not 9. Oh well. I decided to just wait. Spike the Dog was doing their sound checks and warming up. At 9:30 they opened the doors. Since I had been there so long a group of guys asked me if they were supposed to pay ME to get in since there was no door person... I said no of course. So we all just walked in. They went to the bar, I stood over to the side... They were promptly sent back out and told to wait just a little bit more... I was not told that... So, I guess I got in for free. I stood around for a long time, then I sat for a long time... Spike the Dog didn't go on until 11pm. They were alright. I thought the sound wasn't too great, but it wasn't terrible. Their set seemed fairly short. My view was blocked much of the time by a very large guy who was setting up one of the cameras for Sparklehorse's show. (yes it was filmed by at least 2 tripod cameras and one handheld one.) Matt Linkous has a voice VERY MUCH like his brother's. Ok, almost exactly like it really. I just don't think his lyrics are up to par... But their sound really isn't bad. I enjoyed them more during the Jam on the James, where the sound seemed better. After Spike the Dog went off, there was a bar run, so at that time I winded my way to the front so I wouldn't be blocked by the camera guy for the Sparklehorse performance. I really didn't know what to expect... As they were setting up it looked like they were going to have trouble fitting all the instruments on stage! There was a violin, xylophone, keyboard, drum set, stand up bass/cello, and about 3 or 4 guitars plus a bass guitar, and then the tape sampling machine, a drum machine, and one of those toy voice distorters... And for Mark's microphone he had a regular one and a distorted one. They came on around midnight... There were only 4 of them, Mark, the keyboard / violin / xylophone / backup vocal guy, the bass / cello guy, and the drum guy.... Don't ask me who they were I don't know anything about Sparklehorse's live band... The violin guy did say he hadn't been in Richmond for 10 years... but none of them were ever introduced as far as I could tell...
They opened with a new song, I guess "Here Come the Painbirds"
or something like that. Sorry I don't know more about their new stuff...
They played a lot of new songs and a lot of old ones... They played for
like 2 hours... cause the show was over at 2am... I know of the old
ones they played they did:
After Little Bastard Choo Choo, which was met by somewhat stunned silence and a few odd claps and cheers, Mark said, (I'm paraphrasing) "here's something not to forget, never trust a hippie." Also of interest to Cracker fans... He did do "Sick of Goodbyes," though in a definitively Sparkly way... One of the key differences is in the last line of each main verse... like say in the first one where it goes "the sun drags locomotives to the ocean" he didn't include that line, instead it was "no one sees you on your vampire planet, no one knows you like I do." And that line was repeated after every verse. Also in the chorus, "no one knows you like I do" was repeated and then "I'm so sick of goodbyes, goodbyes." Funny how the song can sound so different! Still sounded excellent though, but in a Sparklehorse way rather than a Cracker way. On the new ones... It's really hard to tell what the lyrics were on a lot of them because of the distorted voice mic and the less than stellar sound... I know that the song they closed on was really GREAT. It was pretty fast, and I think most of the lines started with "I want to be..." As for the other new songs... well... ummm... they were great. Most of them were pretty fast too (a la Tears on Fresh Fruit) and also fairly short... They had a wide range of instruments and tape samples included and a lot of distorted vocals... and they were very striking. If I had to sum up the show in one word I think that's the word I would use. Striking. I mean, the sheer talent this guy has as an *artist* is just amazing. A lot of the audience didn't seem to be in agreement on this point. There were lots of people there who were, but there were more who probably just came to drink on a Friday night or to hear "Someday I Will Treat You Good." They didn't seem to know how to react to songs you can't really dance to... They didn't like the slow songs and would get annoyingly loud with their conversation during the slow songs (like at Cracker shows where the people want to hear Low and Get Off This and they play Dixie Babylon and Big Dipper.) Too bad his hometown doesn't love him like the Europeans do! That's just downright embarrassing. Oh, also, all through the show there was music playing from a CD player (I'm not sure if it was from next door or up stairs or what...) and that was kind of annoying. As for famous faces in the crowd... Well, there was Wes Freed (from Drive by Truckers and artist for the GB cover), Tom Richards from soon the to be mega-famous Waking Hours (they just got signed), and there was, I guess, David Lowery's wife Mary... I'm just construing this from Mark saying at one point to a woman in the audience, this is your husband's guitar, and then someone beside me saying to their friend that he was talking to David Lowery's wife. Then they played "Someday...." and he made a point of looking at her during the line "tell me why the beautiful ones are always crazy." Ok, so that's the long drawn out version of my first experience with seeing Sparklehorse live. I was definitely impressed, though the venue didn't seem right for them. I can see how someone would say an old church was a great place to see them... Oh and they did have a running slide show the whole time but I couldn't really see it cause the stage was so small... I think it was mostly to do with motorcycle stuff... So was anyone else there? The club was pretty packed... Come on and speak up! |