The first time I saw the DIRTY THREE was in a marquee at Leeds Festival only a couple of years ago. There was a compelling desperation in that performance. It could have ripped itself apart at any moment, stretched beyond endurance by Warren Ellis's anguish to escape the clutches of human frailty. Or something. The precision of his bravura solo violin playing was an astonishing contrast to the swaying incoherence of his between song chatter.
Tonight he tells some of the same stories, but this time with the soul fully connected up, its all more lucid. We have, for one, the tale of a man pushed beyond his limits to steal his lovers credit card for a 2,000 mile journey across a continent, walking on and on when the gas runs out to collapse in heart broken delirious joy at being "where … you … want … to ... be". (massive swirl of catgut and liquid music … double pounding on floor toms … it's "2000 miles")
The difference is that tonight Ellis knows where he is and where we are. Living more often in Paris than his native Melbourne now he brings us to the edge more carefully than before. He's the magician shaman in knowing control of the whole devilish event. We're here to be awed and amazed, not terrorised. And so it unfolds.
Opening with "Alice Wading" from the newest and warmest album, "She Has No Strings Apollo", the two hour set picks out pieces from right across the considerable DIRTY THREE repertoire. Each tune has its laconic stream of consciousness introduction ... "Are there any women in tonight with darkness in their hearts? ... let's work on that …" He nails each song up where we can see and touch it, explaining the narrative content so we can run the flickering internal movie to fit the emotional soundtracks the band provide. He gives us himself as a character to love and fear so the music can lead a bigger life.
The astringent richness of the Three is moderated by the addition of bass player Marty Kasey. Kasey used to be a Triffid. Now he's one of Ellis's band mates in Nick Cave's backing group the Bad Seeds and on this tour he’s adding muscle and confidence to the Dirty Three. The fragile heart of their earlier sound is pulsing more strongly.
Warren Ellis paces the stage like a manga giant with dangling arms made from half flesh and half instrument. A bow joined to one arm, a fiddle to the other, he can reach from the vocal mike right back to he drum kit, and spin around to flail the whole stage if he wants to. He does seem to want to. His music is sublime and his showmanship is up there with the greats. His trademark is the long spiralling line, howling almost out of control in unresolved and tragic pursuit of something dark and wonderful. He also does rock and rolling duck walk pizzicato and impossible sounding chords and dischords. It’s punctuated, seasoned and focussed by Jim White’s impeccably individual drumming. Most drummers seem to play in chunks. Jim White strikes every note like a fresh discovery. Wherever Ellis goes, White is there with a comment, a ripple of support or a crash of enlightenment. He’s a big star in his own right, but tonight he’s playing to serve. He is unfeasibly good, and you have to wonder why , this being his second appearance at the Brudenell this year, the entire Leeds Percussion Corps aren’t out to do homage. The place is packed anyway, so no one’s actually complaining.
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Mick Turner, Dirty Three record sleeve painter and King Crab record label boss, is the band’s fine guitarist. With a bass player on hand his one man orchestra of a guitar gets more freedom. Like Jim White, he uses the freedom to play a subtle and supporting role. A chord here, a burst of notes there, he always does music first and the guitar second. It's a crucial difference. Everything he does is for the song, never drawing attention away from the subject of every number – that tentaive relationship between Warren Ellis's genius and the soul of the audience. The audience tonight are filled to bursting with the full two hour onslaught. We went home delirious and overawed.
Earlier in the evening Leeds DEERPARK had swapped gentle songs and multifarious instruments in a mild mannered and respectful opening set. Six or seven luminaries of the Leeds underground, featuring a theatrically smoking violinist of star proportions, they gave outings to voices, a flute, guitars, a harmonium and some gentle drumming. Very nice.
The surprise of the evening for me was Noah Taylor in his CARDBOARD BOX MAN mode. Noah Taylor has more than a decade of illustrious film credits to his acting name, including The Year My Voice Broke, Almost Famous and a couple of things with a character called Lara Croft (whoever she is). This is his secret other side. CARDBOARD BOX MAN, with a pick up guitarist to supplement the self-confessed "horrible little one man band", did sonic explorations through a digital delay-focussed set of gizmos. Often with a beautiful semi acoustic guitar, sometimes with a wooden saxophone or a harmonica, the pulses were driven through the electronics to what seemed like the gradual and accidental discovery of rock and roll in twenty minutes. It was exciting stuff, and got richer and more interesting as it built up. Two numbers was all. And at £6 the CD was a treat to take home. On Turner’s King Crab label with (how did you guess?) a painting by Mick Turner on the sleeve. Perfect.
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