There have been many Beauty & The Beast acts in popular music through the years – Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue, Johnny Cash & June Carter, Shane MacGowan & Kirsty MacColl… the list could go on. What’s most remarkable about the Campbell/Lanegan pairing, however, is the fact that there’s no doubting who’s in the driving seat. Isobel Campbell cuts a dashingly chic figure at tonight’s T On The Fringe gig, in a curve-hugging dress and knee high boots, and while Mark Lanegan is only dragged out from the wings as he’s required she flits seamlessly between an entire orchestra of instruments. Neither of them speaks much between songs (in fact, in Lanegan’s case he doesn’t speak at all) but there’s no doubting who’s the boss. This is Isobel Campbell’s show.
And what a show it is. The handful of new songs that are given an airing prove that Ballad Of The Broken Seas was no fluke, while the likes of ‘Ramblin’ Man’ and ‘(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me’ receive the warm reception that they undoubtedly deserve. There’s even a cover of the Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra classic ‘Sand’ (and we all know who was boss in that pairing, too) that wins a round of spontaneous applause from the crammed-in crowd of Queens Of The Stone Age fans and crooner-devouring pensioners.
With another album from this unlikely pairing in the pipeline we certainly haven’t heard the last of Campbell and Lanegan, and it wouldn’t be altogether surprising to see them garner another Mercury Prize nomination next year. Switching from Tom Waits-style piano jazz to the Man In Black’s dusty country with ease, they’re never anything less than intriguing, and one new track in particular sounds like a Bond theme in the making. You might cast Isobel as the sultry love interest, but Mark’s gravely voice and dishevelled black clothes probably rule him out as a future 007. After all, this Beast hasn’t been tamed quite yet.