Lambchop play the Albert Hall
May 8th, 2002 by freddie96
Lambchop
Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 7th May 2002
So here I am at another fundamentally imperfect and cavernous London venue, up in the circle where the Albert Hall mushrooms grow. I feel like I’m suspended directly above the stage; vertigo waves force me into the back of my seat removing most of it from view. This hall is like Wembley stadium, revered, old, with a musky character and just not up to the job – most of the seats face across the middle of it and plenty even face away from the performers.
First up is a Norwegian folk-country duo who like to talk, talk so much that they say the odds are only ten to one that they will complete their six-song set in their allotted twenty five minutes. In contrast to their simple sweet songs the chat is calm anger, that the venue wanted a 25% merchandising charge for allowing them to sell their CDs, that this is the only stop on the tour that they have had to pay for their beer – ‘£3 a bottle!’. They manage five tunes.
Vic Chestnut wheels himself on stage to play on his fuzz-boxed drawn-out acoustic guitar dark sparse songs of regret and displacement. Dealing with life’s lots and lonesome love with his lived-in voice Vic can make even marble columns go wobbly and weep and after forty-five minutes I still want more of his tales. It’s time to move seat, however. With the whole stage finally in view I wedge myself down into my new vantage point so as to encourage my mind and body to negate the false information my inner ears are giving about my precarious sense of balance…
As the Lambchop pianist plays a solo overture, the other twelve members of the band softly stride into view. Have nine guitars of all kinds ever been played so quietly in a venue so large? Songs from their latest album ‘Is A Woman’ are sung out by founder and songwriter Kurt Wagner in his straightforward natural baritone voice, the words ringing out clear with an old-fashioned blue-collar honesty to them.
Acoustic, electric and electronic sounds blend elegantly together as if they had been born on the same day as un-identical triplets. As Lambchop play, each band member (half of whom are playing two instruments) knows that their small part is adding to a fragile lattice of sound that often is better than that of a studio performance. Elegant musicianship and deeply emotional long songs alter the atmosphere to that of a intimate gathering with all present rapt, even during the telling of an old long joke by the pianist and the understandably lengthy introduction to the band members.
The band has a choked power generating an underlining tension that only gets slightly released as they start to include songs from their breakthrough album ‘Nixon’. Volume, however, is not allowed to override the intricate arrangement of their sound. Lambchop are a unique treasure of our musical world, taking on even this most cavernous of venues with their quiet spare sound and its ultimately joyful air taking it over with not a hint of violence. At the end my legs were wobbly as I stepped down the gangway to the exit – only this tine I was unsure if this was due to my poor balance or the performance I had been lucky enough to witness.
Beg without pride, if need be, for a ticket as Lambchop continue their UK tour and ask your gods for clear cool skies at their appearance at this year’s Enchanted Garden.
Gidon Z Cohen
Lambchop are playing this year’s Enchanted Garden
[galleryurl=http://www.bigchill.net/gallery.html?id=15]EG2001 photogallery[/galleryurl]
