We're at the climax of Leeds' biennial FUSE04 festival – organised by the City Council, supported by Radio 3 and curated this year by jazz eccentric Django Bates. This afternoon we've been watching some technically stunning videos from Leeds bands, and there have been live gigs from 15 cracking novice bands in the Bright Young Things event all week. On Wednesday a specially commissioned piece by Jonny Greenwood, "Smear", had been given its world premiere by the London Sinfonietta, with Valerie Hartmann-Claverie and Bruno Perrault featured on ondes martenots. And loads more all week long. Can we stand the pace?
Tonight it’s just another gig. But it is in the large auditorium of the West Yorkshire Playhouse. And we do have GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MYNCI and YO LA TENGO. When YLT played last in Leeds, at the Leeds City Varieties, the stage was tiny, sloping and intimate. Here at the West Yorkshire Playhouse we're talking serious "space", as they call it in luvvy circles. The place is bloody cavernous.
Six piece Gorky's Zygotic Mynci get the first crack at it. And they are a bit overwhelmed. The audience are like medical students in the gallery … staring down at patients on the slab. And, like students, they have no qualms at all about coming late into the darkened theatre, pushing along the rows and spilling their beer in a continuous sequence throughout the set. So your reviewer is a little distracted from the rather fragile music being offered up.
Applause is warmly sympathetic from beginning to end. The very personal appeal of Euros Child and his band of totally honest musicians is put right on the edge by this forbidding venue. Looking around, many of the audience will have been cutting their own musical teeth when Fairport Convention were leading the charge into acoustically grounded acid/folkish rock 30 years ago. And for many of them, Gorky's sound won’t have the exciting differentness that made so many young rock converts go for them in the early to mid-1990s. Loving their "Spanish Dance Troupe" album so much, and looking forward to hearing "Sleep/Holiday" when it eventually reaches me, I confess to some slightly anxious disappointment. This reaction is not what I expected.
For sure, the set is really well-balanced. The predominant wistfulness is punctuated by nutty rock thrashes like "Poodle Rockin" and "Mow the Lawn" with "Sweet Johnny" taking them out in a blaze of instrument-torture reminiscent of the Who. With (is it?) seven albums worth of material to choose from, we certainly have a broad swathe of fine songs to go at. Euros sings as well as ever, and spends two thirds of his time at keyboards of one sort or another. Effortless harmony singing comes in and out in fine Brian Wilson homage style. Megan Child plays those familiar violin lines whatever else is going on, and the rest of the band follow along with a steady patient vibe. A double acoustic guitar start in "Lady Fair" from the Blue Trees album works very well. That older song sets the mellow and introspective mood for several of the newest songs from last year's album "Sleep/Holiday". Unlike sales-driven others, Gorky's keep on making the music they are best at, expressing their dreamy spirits with dignity and quality.
YO LA TENGO start via Ira Kaplan's nearly-sublimated guitar throttling violence. Their understated but compelling harmony shapes and Georgia's masterly drumming immediately lift the audience mood from pastoral bliss into something more like edgy excitement. Where Gorky's six had chugged along, the three from Hoboken make a mighty noise from the start. The set concentrates on "Summer Sun", with a very funny dance routine version of "Nothing But You and Me".It has hand jive, steps and "Shoop shoops" from James and Georgia and a tape doing the backing track while Ira does his usual semi-whispered vocal. "Little Eyes" and "Tiny Birds" stand out as definitive Yo La Tengo songs, minimalist, intriguing and rich in nuance. We get Georgia vs Yo La Tengo, and much else besides.
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Three songs in, Ira uses his confident and educated tones to invite people into the huge space between the band and the comfy numbered seating that we have so carefully reserved in advance. The word "sit" is gently insinuated so that it’s clear we are not being invited to do anything untoward. One young man takes up the offer – claiming some dusty space well back from the band. "What’s your name? Alan? Hi Alan … er … "Security … ?" Somehow the joshing encourages a big floor invasion of wonderfully obedient sit downers that I don’t remember seeing since about 1969. It makes me feel very happy – and the whole mood does shift the band's way from here on. Some not-bad dancing takes place and the decision to use the big prestige venue for some lo-fi and personal rock and roll seems to have paid off in a very good way. This is Leeds City Council and a major provincial theatre being relaxed and cool … and it's working.
One or two extended guitar rants break the mood a little. Ira does like to go for the industrial qualities in his instrument sometimes, and Georgia has a very extended bit of drum pounding of the sound crew checking the levels type. But the show keeps the audience buzzing along and the whoops cheers and clapping get bigger all the time. We know it’s nearly over when the familiar chords of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" open up with Ira switching to keyboards and bass player James moving to a second drum position. The audience lift it again as Euros Child and Pete Richardson carry some of Gorky's drums on and join in. One of the lost children from the 60's gets up and dances inside the hallowed wedge monitor area as if she'd had lessons and was on the payroll. "Kiss that ass goodbye", indeed. As a song it works because it repeats the banal and the self evident so often and so many ways that the truth re-emerges as fresh, real and dangerous. It is a very moving piece, no doubt about it. And the "good byes" that take up the last section, with the band walking away from the mikes and the audience are very poignant.
The show has already overrun. But we do get a big surfy encore number as a traditional rock finish and all are well pleased. Someone tells me it’s an Adam Ant tune, but I wouldn’t know about that kind of thing. It has been a special week in Leeds.
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