Mercury Rev live review – Brighton November 2008
A review of Mercury Rev at Concorde 2 in Brighton on November 11th 2008.
Mercury Rev, Concorde 2
who are mercury rev?
Mercury Rev, one of my favourite bands, have been around since the 1980’s. The band appear to be lead by singer and songwriter Jonathan Donahue, who was also a member of The Flaming Lips in the early 90’s. Bassist Dave Fridmann is one of the most prolific producers around today, as well as producing the majority of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips albums he was also responsible for the recent MGMT album, as well as albums by Weezer, Low, Mogwai, The Delgados, Sparklehorse and many more. Sadly Dave doesn’t tour with the band, but we do get the ever present Grasshopper, and three other members of the band playing live. Rumour has it the band spent much of the early 90’s on heroin, with Donahue once attempting to gouge out Grasshoppers eye with a spoon. They’ve since calmed down.
the music
Mercury Rev started life as a psychedelic freak out band, and moved into glacial pop with 1998 album Deserters Songs. With new release Snowflake Midnight, on record, they began to combine the two sounds to create something both experimental in sound but restrained with a pop sensibility. Tonight the tracks from this album are left to grow and consume the venue in huge swathes of noise. All the tracks from the new album tonight are completely unrestrained, and appear to represent the early Mercury Rev far more than any gig I’ve seen them perform over the last 10 years.
As well as newer, more experimental tracks, Mercury Rev are still more than happy to play the old favourites in a very straight forward fashion. Tonight we hear some of the most popular tracks from The Secret Migration, Deserters Songs and All Is Dream including “The Dark Is Rising”, “Goddess on a Highway”, “Tides of the moon” and “Holes” which for many bands would be a miracle considering how many times they must have played these songs. When a band is happy to pander to the needs of fans, you have to let them have their fun, and although some of the newer tracks went on a little too long (10+ mins of noise in some cases), there was no reason to complain.
Holes live at Hydro Connect 08
The sound quality too was superb, incredibly loud, I was near the front and actually felt physically sick at one point. Nothing can quite beat the explosion of noise halfway through the new track “People are so unpredictable”, incredible stuff.
5/5
People are so unpredictable live at Hydro Connect 08
stage presence and banter
With one of the most theatrical front men in pop in Jonathan Donahue, you never have to worry about not having much to look at during a Mercury Rev gig. Although the band barely spoke to the audience tonight with words, a huge amount took place alongside the music. Jonathan looks like he’s walked straight out of a fairy tale with his pointed beard, nose and ears (I know for a fact his beard isn’t always pointed, so I’m starting to wonder if he wears prosthetics on stage!), and he plays up to this with mystical stares, flowing arm movements, balancing curiously and conducting various members of the band. Combined with some surreal background visuals this makes for quite the magical spectacle.
5/5
Jonathan doing his thing during The Dark Is Rising, at For Noise in France 2008
audience
The audience tonight was incredibly mixed, with ages ranging from 18 to at least 68. One or two of the older fans looked a bit annoyed by the more experimental elements of the gig, after a barrage of noise on somewhat drunk east end bouncer type turned round, shook his head and said “I’m not saying anything” before walking off. Most people seemed to love it though, especially the couple snogging during The Dark Is Rising up the back.
4/5
venue
The Concorde is not one of my favourite place to see a band, its shape and pillars mean its not easy for everyone to see, but it worked out just fine tonight sight wise. I think Mercury Rev are a band that really demand to be seen outdoors, or at least in a large venue, and originally they were supposed to be playing the much larger Corn Exchange. With their new sound, the Concorde couldn’t quite contain them, and this detracted a little.
3/5
the support
Howling Bells supported tonight, and as a fan I was quite looking forward to this. Shame then that the sound was terrible and lead singer Juanita Stein was such a bitch! We had to put up with her pompous attitude throughout their set, which began with her asking everyone how we were three times (we didn’t respond loudly enough), as if we were kids at some dire party.
We were then told how pissed the band were at getting booted off a radio show because Paul McCartney wanted to do it, and “like, when did he last release an album?”. Hmm, last Howling Bells album – 2006, last Paul McCartney album Memory Almost Full in 2007, with his next coming out in 2 weeks (released under the name The Fireman). If a middle of the road band is going to insult members of The Beatles, at least get your facts straight. Let not forget either, that their new album was engineered by Dan Grech-Marguerat, who also produced Jenny Wren, one of Paul McCartney’s recent singles.
To top it off, she claps during one song, and when nobody joins in, bends down, claps slowly and says “It’s not hard”. I’ll clap when I want to, thank you very much! First time I saw Howling Bells I loved them, but this conceited performance showed them to be unworthy of sharing a stage with the far superior first support act Aviv Geffen, never mind Mercury Rev.
Shame I only caught one Aviv Geffen track, it sounded great – check him out.
4/5 for the one Aviv Geffen song, 1/5 for the Howling Bells
Howling Bells – Setting Sun (still a great track)
overall
A great performance by Mercury Rev, a little long, but with everything you could ask for from them and plenty of unusual stuff thrown in. Majestic and draining at the same time…
4/5
