Gig Review: Nitzer Ebb.

NITZER EBB

26 SEPTEMBER 2010

FOLSOM STREET FAIR

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Do you pronounce it NIT-zer Ebb? Or NIGHT-zer Ebb? Doesn't matter, my good friends. Both are correct - just depends on the moment, really. The band says it both ways, and, by my reckoning, so should you.

On a spectacularly hot and (quite rare this year) sunny afternoon this last Sunday, Essex-based trio Nitzer Ebb was the headlining band for San Francisco's favourite BDSM festival, the one and only Folsom Street Fair. And what a day it was! A couple of friends of mine and I traversed Folsom from 12th Street to 8th, taking in the sights and sounds of a veritable shitload of gays, straights, lesbians, bears, leather daddies, tourists, locals, nudists, tops, bottoms, upsidedowns, slaves, owners, twinks, doms, trannies, transvestites, latex babes, and piercing affectionadoes (wow, could have sworn that was a word - but I like it, so I'm going to keep it) wandering around the streets and alleys of the SOMA district of downtown San Francisco ... and keeping it real, in a big fucking way.

And it was all good. We had a lovely time. Pretty much everybody under this great Sun of ours was represented, at least in some form or other. I quite like an atmosphere where everybody can be themselves, unmasked, around other like-minded folk, and in the process, everybody gets along. Isn't that the point of life? Getting along? That's what I think - but it's fucking appalling to me how many people out there just don't get it.

Where was I again? Oh yeah - Nitzer Ebb!

I'm not sure as to what exactly happened, but there seemed to have been some kind of a technical glitch that occured, so their set was delayed for 20 minutes. Which was a pretty hard-core fuckup on the part of the stage technicians, considering that all music had to cease and desist by 6 PM. This was especially bad in Nitzer Ebb's case, seeing as their set was supposed to begin at 5.05. Not good, not at all. Sure, we had San Francisco's own District 6 supervisor candidate Anna Conda (check out her site here) acting as a mildly amusing MC (think Guy Pierce in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - but not as cute), but I think the crowd was beginning to get a little restless. A hunched-over and naked old man to the right of us began to furtively masturbate, whilst a man wearing a goat mask backwards loomed nearby.

5.25 PM, and success! Nitzer Ebb - singer Douglas McCarthy and drummers Bon Harris and Jason Payne - took to the stage and wasted absolutely no time in breaking into their first number, "Getting Closer" from their 1990 album Showtime. Damn, their music packs such a punch! Think of a tractor-trailer painted the pitchest of black hurtling down an inclined interstate with absolutely no brakes, and you have there an idea of the beats being thrown out at the audience whilst McCarthy prowled the stage right to left and back again like a caged panther in militaristic garb, barking his lyrics as if they were orders to disgraceful subordinates. "I know what you buy / And it's wall to wall! / I know what you buy / I'm not gonna - TRY!"

Absolutely brilliant - the crowd (including our masturbating geriatric) was bouncing around like crazy, enthralled with the charisma flowing from the stage like magma. McCarthy, Harris, and Payne threw out as many songs as they could with their unfortunately truncated set; 1987's That Total Age, 1989's Belief, 1990's Showtime, and 1991's Ebbhead were represented in all their electro-industrial glory - as were a couple of songs from their first album in almost two decades, this year's Industrial Complex. "Down On Your Knees" was a glorious and ingeniously ferocious nod to their early pre-That Total Age days, and "Once You Say" (backing vocals on the album provided by Martin Gore of Depeche Mode!) fucking rocked, complete with hardcore thrashing guitars that brought to mind Motörhead.

But here's where I might get a little critical. Now, I don't mind backing tapes all that much. If you're specifically an electronic band in a particularly demanding setting, then backing tapes are probably a must. This was an outdoor festival under a non-elastic schedule, so I'm not griping about the fact that it was rather obvious that, for all the flailing of drumsticks that Harris and Payne did, not once did their beating sync with what we heard (but maybe the beating-off of our old buddy) - but it was very noticeable. I've seen Nitzer Ebb a couple of times before, and they do perform the percussion live under different circumstances - but, yeah, it was hard to ignore.

However, as my friend Michael so sagely put it later, McCarthy's charisma (and his reflective policeman shades) quite literally carried the show - or what was left of it after the 25-minute delay. Enough about that; I think there's something more important to say.

One of the major themes swimming about in Nitzer Ebb's songs has always been about empowerment. Back in the mid-to-late 80's, that empowerment was being preached to the young - "Forget all that you're told / You are young, they are old / Control is all they've got to give" from Showtime's "Fun To Be Had" (which probably was going to be on the set, but wasn't for obvious reasons) is a great example. But there, on the baking asphalt of downtown San Francisco that sunny Sunday afternoon, the lyrics took on a different power - especially with a group of people who had grown up (probably in high school, no less) with their music. No, this time I reckon the empowerment Nitzer Ebb's music conveyed had less to do with authority, per se, but with the fucking dimwitted bigots and haters who would love nothing more than to see beautiful street parties like this outlawed, once and for all.

And I think that's a message that carries on, and it's a fucking great thing indeed. Goddamn, I love music.

setlist

getting closer

down on your knees

shame

hearts & minds

once you say

lightning man

godhead

murderous

And now, for your amusement, here's McCarthy and friends with the rather dark and menacing track "Lightning Man" from Showtime. Enjoy!

Gig Review: Editors.

E D I T O R S

WARFIELD THEATRE

SAN FRANCISCO

8 FEBRUARY 2010

When Editors released their most recent album In This Light And On This Evening (October 2009), some of their fans seemed to become mildly disgruntled at the musical direction the Birmingham, UK quartet was drifting towards. After all, after two very successful records - their 2005 debut The Back Room and 2007's An End Has A Start - Tom Smith and Company decided to bring legendary producer Flood into the mix (haha, yeah, pun kind of intended) and veer into the realm of bands such as Depeche Mode, New Order, and Erasure. So, yeah, some fans were, like I said, mildly disgruntled about the whole lay of the land. I am not one of those fans.

Now, I have a theory I’ve been working on as to the general theme of the Editors' songs. I might be completely off-base (and off my rocker as well), but try to stick with me here: Everybody (I think, though I hate to make generalizations) knows the Serenity Prayer, don't they? (It's a staple philosophy behind AA. Alongside burnt coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes, and stale biscuits) "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change," it goes, "courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." So I've been listening to Editors for quite some time, and I think I've arrived at the conclusion that the narrators of their songs are often held in the psychological grasp of the basic crux behind the Serenity dilemma. For within their songs you will find stories of men who, confronted with the stark realities of Love, either A) question whether or not they're good enough for it; B) see themselves as a some kind of a "savior"; C) realize how much work goes into making a relationship work; D) worry that they're giving too much of themselves to their significant other; or E) wax poetic on the fragility of love and people in general.

Please do not ask me to go further into this comparison. I highly recommend listening to the music and lyrics of the Editors, and sending me an email regarding your thoughts. Chatting with my girlfriend earlier today, she told me: "Well, that's one way to look at it!" Let me know what you think.

But I digress. Let me tell you about the show!

The In This Light And On This Evening Tour dropped down in San Francisco Monday night at the stately and beautiful Warfield Theatre. Consisting of Tom Smith (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and piano), Edward Lay (drums and percussion), Russell Leetch (bass guitar), and Chris Urbanowicz (lead guitar and synthesizers), Editors hit the stage with a ninety-minute set that featured tracks from all three of their albums, and had the energy and forthwith to make them shine.

Here are some highlights. First of all, I’d like to state that their music is as tightly-wound on stage as it is on their records. There’s an intense efficiency at play here, and I’m happy to report that it was on full, glorious display during their show. Watching them play older songs with newer numbers, I was constantly reminded of how much of a team they are. Everything, and every sound, just comes together like they were born to be, man.

Take “Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool,” off the new album, for instance. Intense and vaguely horrific, it’s a prime example of the new direction Editors are taking in their song-writing. Featuring squelching synths that buzz about like nasty little insects layered over a deep and roiling drumbeat (which is appropriate, I think, for a song that mentions in its lyrics, “chewing with an open mouth, raw meat, your blood drool attracts the flies …”), Tom Smith’s rich baritone seems to have been perfectly designed for conveying the confused sense of loss that permeate the soul of the track. Even hearing him say the word “fuck” (“I don’t want to be left out – or get fucked”) seems somewhat out of time and place, and frankly I feel that that limited usage of profanity gives the single uttering of it a certain power that the likes of 50 Cent, Jay-Z, or Ice Cube couldn’t achieve in a fucking paragraph, let alone an effing LP, yo. Following the logic of the “Serenity Prayer” I was referring to earlier, I’d say this particular narrator was one who did not possess the serenity to accept what cannot be changed. “I give a little to you, I give a little to him, I give a little to her!” Smith chants, and you can sense his frustration at how little he gets back.

I sometimes found myself wondering if Tom Smith has a bone in his body. Watching him writhe and flail about on the sparsely decorated stage (actually, unlike a lot of shows I’ve seen recently, there wasn’t a single projection, movie, or even a curtain with the bands’ name on it behind the goings-on), I kept subconsciously waiting for him to run into something, slam into Leetch or Lay, or just trip over his feet and fall down on the dusty wood of the Warfield’s platform!

The first single off of In This Light And On This Evening, “Papillon,” surged forth like a fantastical marriage of Doctor Who and New Order. When Smith bellows, “IT KICKS LIKE A SLEEP TWITCH!” you could feel the force resonate in your stomach. “Munich,” off their first album, was full of cool little surprises, including (to my delight) a hell of an extended ending, something I really find endearing about the live experience in general. And "Bones" was just fucking majestic in its rocking power. "YOU'LL SPEAK WHEN YOU'RE SPOKEN TO," Smith intoned over and over again, as the music brought the freaking house down!

Now, there were a couple of moments that seemed a little, well, dull. "Lights" was a rather milquetoast moment, coming across like a boring Coldplay throwaway, and "You Don't Know Love" seemed to be a little weak and rote - a bit like filler and not much else. But these, dear readers, are just minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things, and Editors have officially reminded me of how powerful and grand their music can be - especially in a live setting. Their new musical direction, and how they've come to marry driving indie pop with a delicious electronic sensibility, has certainly not "mildly disgruntled" me. My hat's off to them, and I can't wait to see where their new musical road takes them (and their loyal fans). Cheers, gentlemen. I give your show a ...

B+

Setlist

In This Light and On This Evening

Lights

An End Has A Start

You Don’t Know Love

Bones

The Boxer

The Big Exit

Blood

Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool

The Racing Rats

Walk The Fleet Road

Like Treasure

Bullets

Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors

Bricks and Mortar

ENCORE

Munich

Papillon

Fingers In The Factories

And here, for your listening pleasure, I'd like to play for you a song. From In This Light And On This Evening, here's Tom Smith and company with their new single, "Papillon." Enjoy, and have a lovely day, friends!