(TV) WashPost review: Television @ 9:30 Club 3/24/2003

["Karl W. Reinsch" <karl@rockin-r.net>]

(Written by the same fellow, Mark Jenkins, who did the Lloyd phone
interview before the concert.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29378-2003Mar25.html

Television at 9:30

When Television visited Washington on its first reunion tour in 1993, the
New York quartet picked up where it had stopped in 1978. The band,
arguably the best of the original CBGB's acts, played a dazzlingly assured
show: stately yet robust, fierce yet lyrical. There didn't seem to be
anything missing.

Now in the midst of its ongoing second reunion, Television came to the
9:30 club Monday to demonstrate what it had lacked a decade ago: the
insouciance of its early days. Though the band performed material from all
three of its studio albums, the emphasis was on its first and most
consistent one, "Marquee Moon." Songs such as "See No Evil" and "Prove It"
were supplemented by new tunes and some of the group's older songs.
Singer-guitarist Tom Verlaine led the band into the past for "Little
Johnny Jewel," which Television dropped from its sets soon after it was
released as its first single; it also performed a tempo-shifting version
of the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction," another staple of the band's
embryonic phase.

The set's looseness allowed for some doldrums, notably during the spacey
intro and a meandering spoken-word piece. But the group was precise when
it wanted to be, with Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd tightly
interlocking their trademark cascading riffs.

The peaks of the nearly two-hour set were thrilling, yet perhaps the
music's most remarkable attribute was its playfulness. With the musicians
now in their fifties, Television has become a punk band again.

-- Mark Jenkins
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"