Saturday 1 December 2001

Oh man, you had to be there. A top notch night with quality spewing forth from every concievable orifice. Sorry, it was a lot better than that might sound. No, really, it was.....

Up first is Paddy Garrigan. I should point out that I was sadly unable to watch Paddy's undoubtedly superb, if somewhat melancholic set, on the very reasonable grounds that I was performing it myself. In the interests of some kind of objectivity, I will therefore review the audience instead. Tonight's audience had a kind of charisma - plenty of variety, but almost impossible to stop looking at for long. In terms of line-up, it seems ver Aud's have very much expanded their ranks to include a much larger clientele. This line-up could, on a good night, be world beating - covering all the right areas, listenening intently at times and at others rightly disregarding the miserable bastard on stage whilst they strive to have a good time. They have an impeccable grasp on dynamics, too - background chat rising and falling, reaching small crescendos but falling softly away just when they threatened to overpower. Oh, and they clapped quite a bit when I stopped singing as well. One or two of them later claimed to have even "enjoyed" it. Well, that's never happened before.

Those of you who haven't read the review of the preceeding night (go on, it's an absolute byoooot!!!!) or weren't there on either occasion will no doubt be intrigued by the as-yet unknown commodity which is King Rolo. The king is a soloist, accompanying himself on his guitar. Tonight, this was an electric set, and it was an intriguing development. Where his last gig found Pete Rolo in charge of a largely sympathetic crowd, tonight he was fighting for his audience, and it made a palpable difference. Where before he'd seemed sincere and sweet, tonight he was edgy, almost haunted. With the altered musical backdrop of his electric guitar, this was a much more affecting performance, a troubled soul bared unworriedly to perhaps the perfect audience - a crowd that's come to see the Pumas will probably not, I suspect, be after much sugar to help the unpleasant medicine go down. The overall effect one has is of a kind of inverse niravana-unplugged - Lacking the acoustic guitars, and indeed the entire band band, just one man very convincingly did the work of four, whilst giving us plenty to think about. Which is a good twenty minutes' work in my books.

The Yorkshire House Website has a long and honourable tradition of writing scabrous and generally unpleasant reviews of The Puma Sutras. (If you don't believe me, check out the Archives section. No, honestly..) Well, looks like were going to have to get us some new traditions around here. This was the gig that the Pumas have been threatening to play for a very long time, and luckily they also got the audience that's been promising to come for the last eight years. Right from the word "go", this was assured, cock-sure Rock music which simply (on it's own terms) couldn't be faulted. Opener "St. Desmond" sets the scene amply - Daniel Haywood's vocal delivery switching between snarling roars and lost moments of contemplation, whilst his guitar playing alternates the automatic rhythmic thrash of Lou Reed in 1967 with the skewed and bizarre lead stabs of Robert Quine. But equally visible are the increasingly impressive, and previously maligned, rhythm section of Richard Turner on Bass, and Bill Myall (spelling?) on drums, who were supplying a huge-sounding, and frequently swinging backdrop tonight. Bill has developed into a very effective drummer, lullling you into thinking that his simplicity lies in his limitations, only to throw in the knockout blow with his fill-ins, while Richards lovely, fluid basslines weave in and out of the songs, best demonstrated on "The Sea".

This was also a very well planned set - previous outings have seen the Pumas either starting off loudly, and ending up quietly, or else vice versa. Tonight, you got everything, all nicely mixed up so that the goldfish-like attention span of your reviewer was engaged right the way through this show. Also present were the cannily-placed newcomers to the Pumas set: "Four Sheep", a song about whose subject I am entirely bemused, and the accurately entitled "Glory, Glory, Glory", a perhaps autobigraphical song whose overall mix of quirkiness and catchiness could feasibly propel them to all three of those aims. These also served to demonstrate the Pumas versatility: the first a country-ish piece of whimsy, the second a growling rocker with the characteristic stop-start motion of Daniel's most widely enjoyed songs ("I want my name in lights" springs to mind here, which also made a welcome return to the fold tonight). Even the most curmudgeonly member of the audience couldn't complain about the variety of riches on show tonight. I ought to know, I asked him.

Throughout tonight's show, the Pumas showed off an endearing range of characteristics; enjoyable, if somewhat inaudible banter, a consistently good and inventive show of harmonies, and a generally excellent standard of ensemble playing. Musical treats ranged from the "Punk nonsense" of "Walter Rivers" to the unexpected revelation that Daniel has "a bone in [his] pocket", in the new single, "You find light". Perhaps the only real shame of tonight was that, thanks to unexpected international machinations, the promised new CDs were still somewhere in Austria. In the penultimate song, the lengthy "Beach", (which tonight seemd to morph in to a scarier version of Paul Butterfield's "East West") Daniel sang "We used to play longer, use to say more". The first part of that statement may well be true, but I doubt the truth of the second. No-one could possibly ask for more than what was said in fourty minutes tonight.

Paddy Garrigan