Re: (TV) Television in London

[Keith Allison <keith@marquee.demon.co.uk>]

In message <p05111700b937870f429f@[192.168.1.100]>, Maurice Rickard
<maurice@mac.com> writes
>  So we expect to see 
>a finely detailed treatise as soon as possible.
>
Oh, OK. Not too detailed though 'cos I'm really wiped out after the
drive to London and back. (The bummer is that we should be going again
tonight but I'm too bloody tired to manage it 'cos of the MS. And
there's a party afterwards that we're invited to - hear those names a-
dropping - so we'll miss that too.)

Great little hall, seats about 700. We had front row centre seats and
the sound was excellent. The usual Strats and Vox AC30's on stage. Met
up with Ray and Howard and Dennis appeared from NY. If I was never going
to see Television again (who knows...?) then this is the gig I would
want to remember. Felt like I was watching a bunch of friends playing
together (which wasn't the case each time last year). Tom was relaxed
and friendly to the audience, made a couple of jokes about not tuning up
enough and, indeed, there was none of the interminable tuning stuff we
had last time. Being so close you could see that the reason for the
tuning between songs is that he hit the damn guitar so hard; whereas
Richard look like he's _playing_ it, Tom looks like he's constantly
battling it to get new noises out of it. 

They were very tight and very together and Billy was, of course,
phenomenal. I was reminded a lot of that quote from Fred in the
interview that Michael Olcsvary tracked down recently: "One day they'll
discover the Television sound is Bill's hi-hat playing"; I found myself
watching the thing to see exactly what he was doing with it. And it was
_busy_! Ray and I spent a lot of time just watching those fingers. Tom
alternated between using a plectrum and picking the string with his
thumb and he hits the strings a _lot_ right over and even behind the
back pickup on the Strat, producing this incredible biting tone. Most of
the time Richard's fingers are moving too fast to follow.

I didn't make a note of the set list (I bet Howard can remember it) but
I do remember 1880 or So, Venus, Little Johnny Jewel (wonderful), Call
Mr Lee, Prove It, Rocket, Rhyme (as spooky and gripping as ever), See No
Evil, Marquee Moon, Glory, Beauty Trip, Psychotic Reaction, ... all
terrific with great solos from Richard, passionate and inspired lines
from Tom and great interplay between the two of them.

The new song, "I Could Sleep All Day" sounded like... a Television song
that could have appeared between Marquee Moon and Adventure. And they
played O Mi Amore, which was great. If only they'd played Hard On
Love...

They were, apparently, asked to do a Bowie song at the end but didn't
know one so the final song of the evening consisted of Fred, Billy and
Richard doing a kind of weird, spaced-out droning jam over which Tom
spoke/drawled lines from different Bowie songs ("Panic in Detroit...
Rebel..er.... Rebel... we could be.. heroes...  can you hear me, uh,
Major TOM!?... Major Tom?... Jean, Jean, uh... Genie..." etc.) It was
very funny and really quite effective and neither the audience nor the
band really knew what was happening.

I did ask a couple of questions about the possible live album from the
NY gigs but it was neither confirmed nor denied. Which doesn't help at
all but at least no-one actually hit me.

(And for those of us on it, I made sure that everyone in Television got
a copy of "Test Patterns")

The best thing I can say about last night is that it just didn't seem
like a band on a reunion tour. There was a vitality about the show and
the playing that belies the ten-year gaps. It felt very 'alive' to me.
But then I'm probably prejudiced...

and now... I could sleep all day.






-------------
Keith Allison
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http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk
"The Wonder - Tom Verlaine, Television & Stuff"
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