Gig Review: Tindersticks, Somerville Theater, 03/07/09

(I started writing this like 2 weeks ago, and finally decided to finish it.)

So it will be impossible for me to write just a plain review of this show - this will encompass my deep love of the band, where they intersected my life, what they have done for me, how I decided to go to the show, the weekend in general, etc. etc. etc. So, if you actually want Tindersticks talk, scroll down a bit.

The earliest record I can find of Tindersticks in my life is a mix tape of songs off the radio. Everyone had those. I can trace my musical evolution and the music of the times with these tapes. I had like 20 of them, from about 7th or 8th grade through high school. The Tindersticks song "Nectar", the first single of theirs to hit the states, is on a mix tape that also contains "Every Generation Has Its Own Disease" by Fury In The Slaughterhouse, "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins, a cover of "Purple Haze" by The Cure, and "This Garden" by the Levellers, among other random gems. So I'm going to place this around 1994 (maybe 1995). What I do remember is hearing "Nectar" on WDRE (Dare To Be Different! 92.7 Double-you-dee-are-eee!!) as the "Shriek Of The Week!" and just completely falling in love with it. Slightly upbeat, completely unintelligible lyrics, very brooding and British. Right up my alley.

I'm going to digress here and say a few things about that time of life in general. I will work on the assumption I wasn't really celiac crazy back then. I actually kinda liked high school, for the first time in my life I had a fair amount of friends and authority figures actually respected me. I got on with just about all my teachers at Prep, and I genuinely liked them. This was a complete 180 from the crap I had to deal with in elementary school, but that's a-whole-nother thesis that will stay unwritten for now. Anyway, high school was not terrible on a social or academic level. My family life, however, was pretty miserable - and when you're 15, that pretty much means the end of the world at 3pm every single day. There's a lot there too that I won't go into right now - just trust me that it sucked. Some people found The Smiths, I found Tindersticks. After I bought the first album (on cassette!!!), I did a summer internship over at Rockefeller (that was '95 I believe) and I almost melted that tape I played it so damn much. Even in college, which was better on the family front but worse on the social front, they had a special place with me. In college I went through the techno-and-classic-rock phase to avoid the black hole that was the late 90's music scene, and I think I picked up their second album sometime along the way, which is also amazing. If you're a "Sopranos" fan, the song "Tiny Tears" from the "Isabella" episode is on that second album.

The next big spurt of money I spent on them was at another crisis point, which was taking qualifier exams in grad school, which lasted from '01 through late summer '02. After one exam I went to Newbury and bought a pile of their cd's and a few bottles of Boone's. I don't think that night ended too well. Fall of '02 was a complete s**t show and I really don't think I would have lived without "Can Our Love...". I have one very vivid memory - I was moving, and was staying in a spare room at a friend's house. I had all my crap in boxes and piles, and a mattress on the floor. It was chaos incarnate. There was a bad breakup and lots of things falling apart. And I remember going to bed one night and just putting that album on and crying until I was completely dry.

The last album (before the most most recent) was in 2003, "Waiting For The Moon" which has "Until the Morning Comes" on it which is one of the most beautiful, brutal songs I've ever heard. I remember that song and that album, listening to it in my boyfriend's room at the house he used to live in that I spent a lot of time at. That may have been part of the soundtrack to my post-election-04 hangover. Even today, when I hear that song, I weep.

So, it took me a while to pick up "The Hungry Saw" but oh man oh man oh MAN is it good. I became a fan of them on Facebook and that was actually where I found out about the tour! They hadn't toured since 2003 and I missed them back then, so I thought, hey, this would be a nice reward for me if I have my data defense done. (This was early February mind you. Data defense still not done.) I was torn between the show Friday the 6th in NYC and Saturday the 7th in Boston. Friday would have been too much of a hassle to get down to, after Bill got out of work, drive down, park car, get train to Brooklyn, etc. Instead we decided to see if his friend Derek and his ladyfriend Jeannine would like to go, and if we could crash at his place. They were in, and I went on Ticketmaster to get tickets... and I get 4 tickets FRONT and CENTER (row B seats 3-6). I didn't believe it until the tickets came in the mail. And lo and behold - the seats were for real.

Anyway - this was the eventual plan that we followed, and was was EXCELLENT. We got into Boston around 4, and were at the Sunset around 5pm. The Sunset has about a billion beers and fabulous food. Around 10 to 8 we decide we should get our collective asses to the show and hop a cab. We got there actually just in time to catch the opening act, Dawn Landes, who was EXCELLENT and opened with this French pop song, "Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles De Mon Age" that I remembered singing in freaking AP French in high school!!!! So, after about 3 big beers and a glass of wine, I am feeling no pain, sitting literally about 10 feet from the singer, and I'm singing along to this song I haven't heard in 15 years. Unreal. The seats were really front row, and my seat was literally right in front of the mic on the stage. Anyway Dawn Landes was excellent, and I'm pretty convinced I've seen her before, maybe somewhere in Northampton.

So Tindersticks start out with Dave on the keys and the intro from "The Hungry Saw" and then the rest of the band comes out and launch into "Yesterdays Tomorrows". Stuart Staples was seriously RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I felt like they were doing a show, just for me. Seriously one of the most amazing shows I've ever been to. After the show, I asked one of the tech guys if I could have a copy of the set list. I got FOUR copies, written on the back of Google Maps directions around Philly and D.C., where they had played earlier in the week. The complete set list:

Intro
Yesterdays Tomorrows
The Flicker Of A Little Girl
Come Feel The Sun
E-Type
The Other Side Of The World
The Organist Entertains
Dying Slowly
Sixteen Summers, Fifteen Falls
Say Goodbye To The City
Sleepy Song
She's Gone
The Hungry Saw
Mother Dear
Boobar Come Back To Me
All The Love
The Turns We Took
Encore:
Buried Bones
My Oblivion

Since I've never seen them, I really didn't know what to expect, but... man. The horn section was absolutely amazing. Everything was amazing - of course being in the front row doesn't hurt :) The sound quality was incredible. I hadn't been to the Somerville Theater for a show before so I didn't know what it would be like, but it was ace. I recommend seeing anything there. Kinda reminded me of the Calvin in Northampton.

Anyway, after the show we hit TEH REDBONEZ! I miss Redbones. I went there tons in undergrad when someone had a hankerin' for BBQ ribz. So we went there for a few hours, I drank even more cider, talked with people, and watched a friend get accosted by a Macedonain with a harmonica. I miss Boston =)

I have no idea what time it was when we got home, but we watched an episode of this show "Tim & Eric" and I laughed and passed out! We also all forgot it was Daylight Savings time that night so we saw it was 3:30am and sort of freaked out.

The next morning we woke up and went to brunch at the Coolidge Corner Cafe which was surprisingly good (cheers Derek!). After wandering around and enjoying the unexpected 60-degree weather and sunshine, we finally headed back to Amherst. I bought a CD at the show of a show they did in Glasgow last year, and it was exactly the right length for the drive from Boston back to Amherst. Kinda uncanny.

So, that was it. A great show, great people, great weekend. Totally undeserved, but oh well. I hope it's not another 5 years until I get to see them again.

Websites: Official, Unofficial
Reviews: Prefix, Daniel Brockman, Bostonist
Dawn Landes: Official

too many teardrops that you held inside

So I should be thesising and I am instead finally listening to the new Tindersticks album, The Hungry Saw (more info on homepage). And man, I'm only on Track 4, but it is ACE. They are also touring, and I think I may want to go see them in March, theoretically right after my data defense (heh).

Go Wiki them or whatever it is you do to find out more info about a band you like, but if you like moody, emotional, dark "pop", check them out. I remember when good old WDRE played Nectar, after their first album dropped, back when I was in high school (199x-y). I thought, man, this is ACE. That first album is still one of my favorites of all time. Can Our Love... hit right at a very very traumatic time for me, and I'm incredibly attached to that one as well. I recall several Tindersticks albums more or less guiding me through my cumulative exams, along with R.E.M.'s "Reveal" - which, say what you want, did a LOT for me on a very personal level.

So, anyway, this new album - on Track 6 now - is right up there with them. As I hopefully enter the last, the final, the hardest, the darkest part of this whole degree process, it will be there for me. And I am slightly pissed that this process should not be nearly as bad as it is - and I still question what part of me made this so shitty, what inadequacies in my nature led to creating this struggle in the first place. I'm glad I can be self-doubtful with the Tindersticks holding my hand.