A week ago John and the Maths came to grey and green Glasgow and seamlessly connected new album Interplay with John’s music of over thirty years ago. Later when their performance ended I left the venue and the city and took away with me an unsettled feeling of having come full circle. Back in my youth Glasgow’s terrain had once been the source for my imaginative interpretation of John’s art, the grey utilitarian ghosts of the city’s industry and the green 19th century parkland typified for me both the playfully austere musical landscape of Metamatic and the evocative and often euphoric drama of The Garden. The fictional avenues, streets, boulevards, and colonnades that detail those albums was siphoned into my journeys around Glasgow’s blunt aspects and it’s fascinating places – the riverside shipyards, warehouses, and tall cranes glimpsed above rooftops or through the gaps between dark tenement buildings – the magnificent Baroque-styled Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery set alongside the river Kelvin, and the Gothic Cathedral to the edge of town with it’s nearby hill-top Victorian Necropolis.
Over thirty years on now, and from north to south cities across the land have passed through post-industrial decline into reinvention as precarious retail destinations. Now today economic tyranny is presently a’ la mode, and It’s out with the old and in with the new fashionable ‘cure’ being dispensed - the new trend of prescribed austerity – daily it’s being injected into the public consciousness, and administered by the invisible bully called fear. The analogue mantra of my reactive youth was provided by John singing about inverted anger expressed as a tidal wave of passive disconnection that was ”going past my window”, and now three decades later and by design or by chance it was fitting when the gig started with Shatterproof and its funky irresistible beat, unleashing a new analogue weapon of words as John shouts out: - ”Your picture is just fiction, and I don’t like, no I don’t like, and I wont take my medicine…”
…and neither we should.
All the signs were good, Tara Busch was the ideal guest artist, and having previously watched her online she is extremely likable whilst engaged at her craft. She cheerfully remained seated while playing her set on a stage fully packed with both the Maths and her own equipment, and the poor woman must have been air-lifted into place next to her mixing desk but didn’t seem at all hampered by the confined situation.
I think it was on the second song when a man appeared behind her and bashed a gong several times. Considering this (seemed to be) the extent of his contribution I’ve since thought post-gig that it might be a fun idea to liven up the gig in future if Tara invites a random audience member onstage to bash the gong for her instead of that guy, I understand that he’s her husband - but it doesn’t mean he’s a gong expert or anything. The gong-bashing could be treated in much the same way as that old four piece electro-boy band from Düsseldorf did during their shows - holding out a musical calculator to their audience while playing Der Tashenrechner and obliging a lucky recipient to jam along obediently pretending to be an operator, adding, and subtracting… Actually, strike that idea - bashing the gong for Tara is one thing while she’s kitted out in her 60’s hair bob, leather jacket, knee-length boots, and looking like the Missus Emma Peel from the Avengers (but thankfully minus the snooty manner) - and hitting the notes for this beautiful musical geek would certainly be something - but the absolute best ever ‘bashing-role’ to have at any Interplay gig ever in the history of bashing ever must surely be the one presently held by Mr Benge – the cool looking long-haired guy on drums standing centre back in command of the beat for the Maths - and it’s Benge who gets my vote for current ‘most envied position in any gang led by John Foxx’.
The Maths as a band are fab to look at – sorry Louis Gordon, but tight curly hair is out this season, as is pogo-ing, particularly with that explosive barnet that Serafina Steer is carrying up top - any sudden vertical movement is likely to result in a major hair-tastrophy - and if restless John tangents off yet again with yet another different collaborator then a visual role requiring big hair surely awaits Serafina in a retro-hip Tarantino film. Fellow band member Hannah Peel dressed herself in a Goth number and expertly calculated the easy on the eye theme, as did Benge, or ‘The Dude’, as he shall forthwith be known, dressed casually, and so totally on the ball in attitude - and I wonder - had he popped into the Blue Lagoon Chippie under the Heilanman’s Umbrella - (the local name for the Central Station bridge where the Arches main entrance is) - for a fish supper and a bottle of Irn-Bru to keep his arm-swing up to action for the gig?
‘The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think’ and everyone should celebrate with a massive Cuban cigar hand-rolled on the gleaming metal thigh of C-3P0 - (I cant say ‘dusky maiden’s thigh’ as its a tad suspect and not electro enough).
I am particularly liking the image John is currently rocking - in the past we’ve had the bland-looking black shirt and trousers with Louis, then the nondescript Roundhouse suit Jacket - and now it’s so - so right for him. In dark mod-style top over a tee-shirt, slim trousers, and his striking silver hair - he looks ten or fifteen years younger, and with Hannah, Serafina, and Benge they all come over as a cool band with something to say. I was bowled over by the group dynamic onstage - and the confidence was evident as Hannah and Serafina exchanged smiles across the floor while delivering the music - and wow, as a bonus, how complete did they look while flanking the silver-haired Foxx! Excuse my blatant sexism - but what’s sexier in an electro band than a woman on a keyboard? - Why, the answer is a woman on a violin of course. The addition of Hannah’s strings to Johns work was a welcome sound, and sight, and it lifted songs like Plaza to a new live peak, meanwhile Serafina threw on her guitar at one point (albeit all too briefly) - I’d seen it parked there prior to the start like it had been cheekily left onstage as a wayward influence.
Back to Tara’s set again - oh yes, hmm, Tara’s set - now there’s a thing. On the coach trip to Glasgow I’d played through her excellent album Pilfershire Lane (I play it often) and at the Arches I overheard someone at the bar saying: ”oh, I suppose we really should make our way to watch the support, better get our money’s worth” - and so you will thought I, but – and, at the risk of having Tara’s hubby come around and bash me instead of that gong - I was curiously unengaged by her work played live, (maybe I needed to see her squeeze out of her onstage prison and do some Emma Peel high-kicks set to music). I just did not feel it in my gut. So much was my lack of reaction that I seriously came to the conclusion that perhaps I’m not really a fan of electro after all, (I think that guitar I mentioned seeing onstage was casting a hex on me). When Tara played the Rocket Wife and announced that John was coming on in a moment I did the unthinkable during an artist’s performance - I left for the bathroom - actually, it’s worse, I‘d lost interest and felt like leaving the venue completely.
On my return I caught the end of Tara’s performance, she smiled at the audience very genuinely, almost humbly, and I felt guilty. During the intermission the DJ played The Cure’s: A Forest - and thankfully de-traumatised me, and then John and the Maths crashed recklessly into the venue with Shatterproof - restoring my faith once more in electro. Shatterproof though was not quite right, enjoyable yes, in an over the top way, but everything was all at once, with John singing like he was in competition against the music, and to his credit he put on a good fight (I believe he was once a boxer). He’s A Liquid just washed over me and away (no pun intended), and then Evergreen came and balanced everything out. I liked the choice and order of the set, it was an intelligent mostly melodic mix of songs. Burning Car and Plaza were amongst the best of the Metamatic period for me, but if He’s A Liquid and Underpass - (yes, its a definitive song, but I’ve momentarily reached an Impasse with Underpass) - had been left out I wouldn’t have missed them at all. I’d have liked the whole of the Interplay album, and it’s at this point I’m reminded about my opinion at the Roundhouse when the new Interplay songs initially left me numb - but these same songs were now the stars of this gig - Running Man and Catwalk were total standouts, and I was impressed by the gentler songs of Interplay and Watching A Building On Fire. The gig was a superior performance - more rawness than the Roundhouse evening. The professional team provided a great light show, and while there had been no back projection of images it had still been an exceptionally visual evening…
