This is actually Mould’s third tour of Australia. His first visit 22 years ago was a solo
acoustic affair. I saw the show at the
Prince of Wales Hotel in St. Kilda, the staging of which verged on the
shambolic. In those days, the stage was
quite a low one and no one knew that Mould was going to perform seated which
initially meant that only those at the very front of the audience could
actually see him. It gave rise to some ridiculous sights as venue staff
attempted to build a platform during the show.
His next tour was 11 years later and ago and was more of the same. This time, he brought his electric guitar
which, at one point, I remember him plugging in to play over the electronic
backing tracks from his Modulate album.
But not only is Mould bringing a band, it will also be
playing tracks from the two bands with which he is most commonly associated,
Husker Du and Sugar. As neither band
toured Australia in their existence, this tour will be the first time Australian
punters will hear songs from these acts in the way they were intended to be
heard. (I might be wrong on the Husker
Du claim. His songwriting and sparring
partner from that band, Grant Hart, toured here a couple of years back but I
couldn’t go and so don’t know what he played.)
Ordinarily I never play music during the day of an act I’m
going to see that night. It reduces
expectations and leads to great discoveries during a gig which influences my
listening for the day after as I relieve the gig. But that won’t be possible tomorrow because
something even greater than Mould’s performance is going to occur and I will
definitely want to prepare for THAT.
Today’s starting point is the demise of Husker Du:
(197) Husker Du – The
Living End
This is the live album culled from a variety of dates of
the final tour of what is arguably rock’s finest 3 piece and almost certainly it’s
most influential. It starts with Mould’s
New Day Rising, switches to Hart’s The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill and then,
more or less, alternates between the two songwriters until their cover of the
Ramones Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, one of their two alternating set ending covers. (Third member Greg Norton has very few writing
credits leaving him time to tend to his quite magnificent moustache.) In between there are thrills galore – Ice Cold
Ice, She Floated Away, Keep Hanging On, What’s Going On, Data Control and In A
Free Land - to satisfy even the most jaded soul.
Kudos also to the compilers for compiling an absolutely slamming set of
some of the finest alternative/punk ever recorded and for seemingly keeping
duplication of tracks with the subsequently released DVD Live At The Camden
Palace to an absolute minimum. That DVD
contains their other set closer, Love Is All Around, aka the theme to the Mary
Tyler Moore Show and an oblique nod to their home town of Minneapolis.
(198) Bob Mould –
Workbook
Bob’s first album after Husker Du’s demise surprised nearly
everyone. Essentially an acoustic album
it commenced with the lovely instrumental Sunspots and then continued through a
number of remarkable, often cello accompanied songs, such as See A Little
Light, Compositions For The Young And Old and the superb Brasilia Crossed With
Trenton. Electric guitar was integrated
to good effect on several tracks such as Wishing Well and Poison Years but it was
only the closing number Whichever Way The Wind Blows that approached anything
resembling the power of his former band. It was also a potent hint of what was
to surface on his next album, the dark and powerful Black Sheets Of Rain.
(199) Grant Hart –
Intolerance
Hart’s first album is a different affair but, like Workbook,
was much quieter and contained sounds not associated
with Husker Du. The opener, All Of My
Senses begins with the sound of keyboards, Roller-Rink sounds like a catchy
keyboard instrumental, Now That You
Know Me (tried out on the last Husker’s tour and included on The Living End),
a song more in the Workbook mould (ahem), included harmonica while The Main
contained gospel overtones. The album’s highlight,
2541, is a wonderfully minimalist ballad. In short the album is no less a triumph than
Mould’s.
(200) Sugar – Live At
Cabaret Metro (Copper Blue Deluxe edition bonus disc)
After Black Sheets Of Rain, Mould formed Sugar, another
three piece, and hit relative pay dirt with their debut album Copper Blue. This show, recorded around the time of that
album’s release was widely bootlegged (under the title Bleeding) and a number
of tracks were used as B-Sides, but the entire show wasn’t released until last
year’s 20th Anniversary Edition of Copper Blue. It is an absolutely cracking gig that
highlights tracks from Copper Blue as well as the subsequent Beaster EP recorded
at the same time as that album. It is one of those
shows where momentum is continually building. By the time the band arrives at the combination
of Slick, the instrumental Clowmaster, Beaster’s Tilted, a cover of The Who’s
Armenia City In The Sky and Beaster’s demolition set piece J.C Auto, the band is
absolutely flying. There are very few
more exciting passages than this on live albums released by anyone else.
(201) Nova Mob – The
Last Days Of Pompeii
By the time Mould had unleashed Sugar, Hart had already
formed his band and released this debut album.
Seemingly about, err, the last day of Pompeii and the death of Roman
author, philosopher and naval commander Pliny The Elder whilst attempting a rescue
mission, it took his musical approach on Intolerance and brilliantly applied it
to a band context. It’s a marvellous album incorporating acoustic and full
blown versions of Admiral Of The Sea
(the later with its relentless “Stroke, Stroke” outro, its brilliant centrepiece),
great rockers in Getaway In Time, Over My Head and Werner Von Braun. (If you've figured out what the latter was doing
at Pompeii, please drop me a line.) The whole piece brilliantly ends with the
explosion of Mt Vesuvius at the end of The Last Days Of Pompeii/Benediction. Nova Mob released only one more album and,
since then, Grant Hart has released a handful of solo albums, the latest of
which, Hot Wax, only a few years ago.
(202) Bob Mould Band
– Live AT ATP 2008
After the demise of Sugar, Mould recorded a number of albums
under his own name and LoudBomb including some fascinating experiments with electronic
music. This live album was recorded at an All Tomorrow’s Parties gig in, I think, London
with what is his current band. Judging
from online set lists, this album documnets a show containing a mixture of Mould solo, Sugar and Husker Du
material of the type I can expect tonight.
Unfortunately it was only a 45 minute set but otherwise the band rocks like
a mule. It ends with a cover of New Day
Rising which started my day on The Living End.
Sweet.
After a late dinner, I kiss “M” and head out to the legendary
Corner Hotel in Richmond full of expectation.
Gig #698 Bob Mould –
The Corner Hotel Richmond, Melbourne, 14 March 2013
This is Mould’s second show in Melbourne, the first being a
sold out show at the same venue the previous night. Disappointingly, the venue is only about two
thirds full when the band take to the stage.
If Bob is disappointed by this, he doesn’t show it; a later call for
hands in the air reveal that only a small number of hard core fans were there
the night before.
With a Springsteen-esque, 1-2, 1-2-3-4, the band was off and
running. The first five tracks The Act
We Act, A Good Idea, Changes, Helpless and Hoover Dam all come from Copper Blue
and are played with maximum intensity.
The next 4 or 5 tracks are probably all from the current Mould album
Silver Age which I’ve yet to get. These
sound pretty good,particularly the raging second number.
Come Again, the low key opener from Beaster is next, an odd
choice, which briefly gets my hopes up that the next track would be the sensational
Tilted into which it is welded on the EP.
My hopes are dashed by the first of the Husker Du numbers, Candy Apple
Grey’s Hardly Getting Over It. A ballad
on that album, Mould’s band plays it at a slightly slower tempo and yet it
sounds far heavier. Could You Be The
One?, the sole number from the Husker’s final and double album Warehouse: Songs
And Stores comes next provoking a massive response from the audience. This is followed by a tremendous version of
Workbook’s See A Little Light.
Almost the rest of the gig is given over to Husker Du. Celebrated Summer from New Day Rising comes
next. With my hopes, expectations and body
movements rising to unprecedented levels, my attempt at memorising the set
list start to fall apart. I reasonably
sure that the next two numbers played is Rising’s, I Apologize followed by Zen Arcade’s
Chartered Trips. The latter number might have also brought the main set to a close but
by then my mind is frazzled by the heavy riff that Bob has sampled and looped through
the PA system.
At this point, the show has been exactly what I hoped
for. The encores raise it to an entirely
different level. The first
starts with Sugar’s If I Could Change Your Mind. Then come the numbers that send the audience
into an absolute frenzy, Zen Arcade’s Something I Learned Today and, miraculously
the one track I had been hoping for but dare not expect, Everything Falls Apart’s,
In A Free Land. (Judging from the crowd’s
eruption, I daresay it was the secret wish of most of the audience.) By now, my body is moving in ways it hadn't
for a few years as I drop all semblance of dignity and scream along to the “In A
Free Land” responses in the choruses.
On the home straight now, the band returns for a final
encore and Mould, sweat pouring from his body as he joyfully stomps all around the stage, plays a killer trio of tracks from Flip Your Wig. The title track is first and surges with nary
a breath into Hate Paper Doll and then, to top everything else, the track which
was my working title for this blog, Makes No Sense At All.
It’s a brilliant show but I’d don’t stay to linger as I need
to maximise my sleep. As absolutely sensational as tonight’s gig was, it can
only be viewed as the preliminary bout to tomorrow’s absolutely heavyweight main event.
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