Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Gigs - News and reviews

Thanks for these. I've read lots of good stuff about this gig and now feel I need to 'discover' more about St Etienne

It's just been confirmed that Jim Thirlwell (aka Foetus) is going to appear with Marc Almond at the Torment and Toreros show in August.

He features, as 'Clint Ruin' on the orignal album, and appeared with Soft Cell several times back in the day.

At the risk of building up for a fail, I am anticipating this gig with more excitement than I have any other for years.

Elizabeth Fraser @ Meltdown.
Royal Festival Hall, 7th August

http://flipsideflipsidereviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/live-review-elizabeth-frazer-meltdown.html

Paul Pledger (allgigs)

**WARNING** Self indulgent twaddle alert

The Untouchable One

Marc And the Mambas : Torment And Toreros
Royal Festival Hall : Thursday, 9th August 2012

On each of the last three occasions I have seen Marc Almond live, I have come away feeling that not only was his performance better than ever, and that I have just experienced the'best gig' I've ever been to, but also further convinced that his music is an intrinsic part of my DNA. Almond's songs reside in the farthest reaches of my life and experience, every time I look in the mirror or talk to particular people. There is a song in his repetoire somewhere that is connected to everything I am.
And it has also been apparent that many of these are present on the Torment And Toreros album, though I confess to finding that very difficult to admit, to accept and respond to. These are bitter songs, emotionally overwraught, yet defiant and challenging - albeit shambolic and not perhaps fully realised.
Until tonight.

The album is a torrent of anger and vitriol, tears and heartache. Torment, if you will. Feelings I recognise well and swam amongst as friends when this was first released in 1983. On first listen, this masterwork instantly struck a chord with me as something very special, really deep and personal - a connection was made with a performer who has gone on to soundtrack my life. And thirty years later, I still feel these things. I still connect and It Still Matters.

So as the moment for Marc to arrive on the stage at Royal Festival Hall got closer, I was sorting out feelings of love and excitement with trepidation and anxiety. How would I react? Would it be as 'good' as I hoped? Would Marc be able to 'do it well' knowing that he too has matured and 'moved on' ?

Introducing the evening's performance, Meltdown host Antony Hegarty. Nervous, shy, touching and visibly moved by the sense of anticipation, importance and 'artistic sacrifice'. He read well, hitting more or less all the notes I would have written, and then shuffled off quickly to his seat - in front of me! Antony is Not a Small Person. Either artistically or physically,

but's its quite something to watch half the show through his hair...!

Almond strode on to rapturous applause immediately the Venomettes (including Anne Stephenson, Gini Ball and Martin McGarrick) had assembled and just moments after the drums began to pound the rhythmic introducton to Mamba - one of the 'associated tracks' I was certainly not expecting to hear tonight.

But if you are going to wallow, wallow deep...

No-one commands a stage like Marc Almond in top form. Prowling, cruising, weaving. Utterly at home and in control. Conducting his band, and crashing cymbals - we are immediately transfixed. Miaow - oh Wow!!
The Bulls is presented in white light, back lit with hi-impact images of toreadors, Spanish dancers and gruesome bullfights, Almond is playing the matador now, teasing and enticing Martin Watkins on piano, posturing and living the drama, parading around the stage in a bulls head as if in some kind of satanic ritual.
One of my personal stand-outs is the next track Catch A Fallen Star which I have seen him perform before, but never with quite so much flambouyant and poisoned flouncing and posing. Neal Whitmore' s guitar too is ever present. Threatening, venomous and penetrating.

Almond is a master of stage craft, and he brings everything inwards and downwards in the blink of an eye and a flick of the hand for the second movement. Tears start to run rings around my heart and the memories flood on in. Remember way back when you were so young and naive...?
It's in his ballads and torch songs that Almond is at his critically most accomplished. And wherein I am at my most vulnerable. If there was to be any catharcism this evening, this is where I began to feel it. He looks so small too, with his back to the audience facing the string section and moving across to the choir. A cabaret clown.

And I'm so wrecked that my eyes bleed.

Part two (Side Three) opens with a crazed Anne Stephenson dancing with a tambourine, whirling dervishly in front of Neal and co-Mamba Lee Jenkinson having a wonderful guitar face-off during Blood Wedding, building everything up to the boil for the album's best known signature track, the Mamba's single Black Heart.
It's fascinating to experience this new fashion for 'whole album' shows, to which Marc Almond has hitherto not succumbed. I've been to three or four now, and its definitely enhanced by knowing what is to come next. Even when you don't want to hear it. Holding the mirror up to My Former Self in readiness, I just closed my eyes and let Narcissus / Gloomy Sunday and Vision do their worst, rising to my feet as the wonderful solo sax pierced my soul at the end. All over the Hall people were standing in isolaion, weeping, waving and generally overcome.

And of course we all knew where this torment was going. Up, out and over the top! Enter Jim (Foetus) Thirlwell, and cue the stampede into the aisles and down to the front. A Mega Multi Million Mania Mix segues into the self-indulgent flesh volcano of sordidness that is Slut!
I can't write any more notes - everything is going so, so well and 'stuff' is pouring out of me and off the stage. All around are beaming, wide-eyed faces, transfixed and enraptured, sharing their own moments of exorcism. And sharing the joy of Antony on stage, mild and humble, doing his very best to feel worthy of his place in the Little Book of Sorrows.

Exhausted and beaming, Almond picks up the cymbals again and closes the show that no-one wanted to end. He speaks for the First Time, having wisely chosen earlier not to interrupt the flow of the album. Thanking everyone involved, he himself is overcome with the emotion of the evening and his gratitude and genuine love for host Antony is honestly touching.
After some persuasion (in what seemed to be a genuine surprise) Hegarty is invited to join Marc on stage again for Caroline Says - the Lou Reed classic at which their relationship began. By his own admission he 'warbles something (beautiful) in the background', and shuffles away into the crying light.

In advance of the show, Almond expressed concern on his websites about the complexity of these songs, the arrangements, the history - and remembering the words. He does struggle with the lyrics to familiar songs since his accident, so that part in particular must have been Of Some Concern. I noticed only one slip, and that's live and forgiveable.
Recalling that accident now, it's little short of miraculous what Marc Almond has achieved in the past eight years. A fitting tribute to Antony, without whom perhaps this evening's show may have indeed never have happened.

With that thought at the front of my mind, I cheer and wave and weep and clap and take my exhausted heart back to Waterloo. Uplifted, re-invented and having come to terms with the things I Have Lived.

Life is affirmed, and I was there.

So the seasons roll on
And my love stays strong...

That's a lovely piece, Martin, thanks for posting and glad you enjoyed it. To my shame, I am still to assimilate Torment into my essence. But it will come, it sits patiently on my "play next" shelf in anticipation.

Benge and Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) are performing live at Café Oto as WRANGLER 20th October.

I’ve posted this elsewhere on the forum* but sticking it here in case anyone misses it

Here’s the blurb:

Formed by Benge and Phil Winter, Wrangler have been recording pure ground-breaking electronic music for a number of years. Utilising an amazing range of analogue and sequencing equipment they are at the cutting edge of the ‘synthetic’ sound which breaks a few boundaries but also pays homage to the sounds of electronic music’s past.

Benge has been releasing ‘pure’ electronic recordings through his Expanding Records label and as a producer with other artists (John Foxx, Tunng) and is currently working with John Foxx as The Maths; Phil is a long standing musician and DJ, most recently as a member of alt-folk group Tunng.

They have recently been joined by Stephen Mallinder who has a long history in music, most notably as a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, and most recently with Ku-Ling Bros. and Hey Rube. Wrangler recently released the 7” single ‘Mind Your Own Sequence’ on Kudos Records and are working on their debut album due out early in 2013.

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/ursula-bogner-jan-jelinek-andrew-pekler.shtm

*
http://www.metamatic.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/44907/Wrangler_Jonny_Trunk_Dj_8pm_Sa#Post44907

Wrangler performed a brilliant debut on Saturday night. Benge was on his Simmons Drums, Stephen Mallinder and Phil Winter on electronics. They did a few Cabaret Voltaire tracks; Crackdown, Sensoria and a very, dark dub-like version of Nag Nag Nag, which bore no resemblance to the original but still maintained its air of menace. Wrangler are off to Vienna this week, no idea yet if there’s further dates.

Thanks for that Rads ... look forward to hearing some of that some time..

Meantime, let's all board the Dazzle-Tardis for some classic OMD ..news via The Electricity Club:



full thing here: http://www.electricity-club.co.uk/blog/?p=10992


...also some videos from DS period have shown up on you-choob:

Souvenir: http://youtu.be/HIE4qSTjXDU
Telegraph: http://youtu.be/qfVWYTO9MjI
She's Leaving: http://youtu.be/xloxCQWWxSo

...not excellent quality but you can occasionally see a bit of the stage set ..

Blimey! Cheers! Sadly won't be able to hear it - does anyone know how to record these shows?

Choices, choices.

Sweet tonight? Only Andy Scott remains, but seems to be getting good feedback.

November/December in Tokyo?
Procol Harem (did they have more than one hit?)
Stylistics (will skip that I think)
and
Tony Hadley. The listing mentions "of Spandau Ballet" just for those who didn't know. Did he have a solo career? Anyone seen him in UK - not really tempted, but very curious.

Then January kicks bottoms with The Ventures, St Etienne, and the Robin Guthrie Trio.