Bands with a history like The Breeders, with the ons, the offs, the lineup changes and whatnot, have a habit of inspiring rather feverish anticipation when they actually get it together to appear again. A flavour of expectation mixed from ingredients principally based around incredulity and surprise. And glee, of course. Bearing all that in mind, it’s quite hard to review nights like this. For the greater section of the crowd, you get the feeling that the Deal sisters et al could play two songs badly then sit about chatting… and most everyone would be happy.
Can’t be the name of the game, however. One must cast a critical eye over all this stuff going on in the packed ABC and, there’s no getting away from it, they’re really quite poor. Rubbish may be pushing it but it’s not terribly good. Generosity from the crowd is one thing, the collective will to succeed another, but, it’s relaxed to the point of mildly shambolic at times. And not shambolic in a charming way. Shambolic in a do some more fucking rehearsing way. Might be the first night of the tour but there’s no excuse when you’re lifting upwards of 20 quid from people. West coast aesthetic or not, this is slack rather than slacker.
That said, it is all very jolly and there are some highlights. A cover of ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ by The Beatles is a doozy, as is ‘Gigantic’, familiar to fans of the Pixies. Kim’s voice still a thing of wonder that manages to sound like a cat being strangled in a thoroughly melodic way. Beautiful stuff. As is the new single ‘Wait In The Car’. New material at events like this is usually as welcome as a critic on opening night but it’s two minutes of spiky, straight to the point, low-fi guitars and raw vocals. Inevitably, ‘Cannonball’ goes down well, perhaps being the tune that ensnared a number of the throng in here, too many years ago to mention.
If all this seems a little perfunctory, well, like the evening itself, it is. They come on, seem amiable enough, sound a bit highschool band-ish, then go off. Short pop songs played to a devoted and very forgiving crowd all the while sounding exactly like a band playing the opening night of a tour. Other than that, the sisters look healthy and they own a colossal number of guitars and use them all. When you start to notice the number of instrument changes, things are possibly going awry.
Fine enough but unlikely to win over any undecideds. A little too much bonhomie and fannying about to really make the most of a very decent back catalogue.
- The Breeders - 21 October 2017
- Gold Class - 25 August 2017
- Kamikaze Girls - 20 June 2017