Miscellaneous - Classic Album Tours

by Anthony Middleton

published: 21 / 9 / 2008

Anthony Middleton examines the growing phenomenon at concerts of often relatively young bands performing their most celebrated albums in full

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In 'Rude Boy' Mick Jones sings 'Stay Free', an emotionally charged song about the differences in destiny he and a petty criminal childhood friend had. When its over, he says he wouldn’t do it outside a studio, that it really was an album track, once recorded, never to be heard or performed again, no matter how good. This was always the way. We knew we would never hear certain songs live. Too quirky, slow, crap or elaborate to work in a sweaty, adrenalin charged concert hall. Equally, there was always a contradiction in the way that bands worked. They created more than just a disparate selection of songs that happened to be released together. Rather, they attempted, not always successfully, to release an album that made sense as a whole; that was greater than the sum of its parts. But after releasing this, the concept was abandoned and they went back to performing the disparate parts of their canon that worked live. This tradition has been reversed in recent years and,after seeing two relatively young bands perform their most celebrated albums in full, I wondered if it was becoming something of a cliché. At the London Roundhouse, Ash performed the whole of '1977' to one of the most lively crowds I have seen for years. Heralded on stage by a few 'Star Wars' (released in 1977) characters, lead singer, Tim Wheeler (Born 1977), lead the trio through what sounds like a greatest hits album, being full to the brim of turbo charged new wave (circa 1977) numbers. It is unusual to know what song is going to come next, but Ash decided to follow the original track order of '1977'. 'Girl From Mars', that overplayed, ‘acceptable’ face of indie, great though it is, was too early as third song in. This was a belting night of nostalgia: but this was a young band and their young fans being nostalgic and knowingly so. When Wheeler struggled, unashamedly to reach higher notes, the effect was positive,a weakness which adds so much character to the songs. His guitar work was never anything but muscular, breaking his singing with extravagant solos. He obviously adored the chance to perform songs, some of which had never been aired live. The following week as part of Heavenly records season at the South Bank Centre, Nada Surf played their melodic masterpiece, 'Let Go', in the august surroundings of the Purcell Room on the South Bank. Being only five years old, 'Let Go' is not an album that many British music lovers will regard as their soundtrack, unlike '1977' for many twentysomethings. It is, however, a rarely intelligent and balanced album and this was reflected in the performances. From the energetic opening acoustic 'Blizzard of 77' and the transfixing 'Blonde on Blonde' to the rockier, freewheeling 'Happy Kid' there was not a dud song. This is a growing trend certainly, yet one becoming less relevant as more music is consumed in individual MP3s rather than as a collection where the number, content and order is decided by the artists. Indeed, Ash played the '1977' shows (they did it again at the Astoria the next day) after deciding to forgo releasing albums at all and simply release songs as and when they have recorded them. Undoubtedly, one of the harbingers of this phenomenon was the performance of 'Pet Sounds' at the Royal Festival Hall in 2002. Not only was the fact that Brian Wilson was competent to perform astounding, but that he would happily dig into his tortured past and serve it up for us. Equally, if not more, remarkable, was hearing him, a couple of years later utter the words: “We will now perform the album 'Smile' in its entirety.” 'Smile', the great lost album, the recording of which, Wilson believed, caused fires to break out all over Los Angeles, was being reclaimed from the bootleg hatchet jobs and finally getting a release 35 years too late. Then last year, Wilson, never a conformist, performed an album in its entirety, that he had not even released. 'Luck Old Sun', his best work since the 1960s, was premiered on the South Bank. It was so good, I had to go twice. But Legends like Brian Wilson are an exception. 'Pet Sounds' and 'Smile' are the pop equivalents of symphonies, an artistic whole. With the swathe of recent performances of whole albums, something else is happening, both nostalgic and, perhaps, cynical. A couple of years ago I saw Echo And the Bunnymen at a far from packed Shepherd’s Bush Empire. They were great, but there was a lack of purpose and a tension between New Stuff and Old Stuff with Ian McCulloch getting increasingly peeved as people shouted requests for twenty-year old songs. Then last month a sold out Royal Albert Hall saw the Bunnymen perform the 1984 album 'Ocean Rain' in its entirety. Perhaps fans only came out if they had a guarantee that songs recalling their angst-ridden 80's youths would be played and not sullied by the band’s desire to show they have written other songs in the past 20 years. So everyone was happy, fortysomethings got their sentimental journey, while Echo and the Bunnymen filled the Royal Albert Hall. This has now become a minor cottage industry. 'Don’t Look Back' present a dozen or so bands doing albums a year. Seeing Gang Of Four doing the whole of 'Entertainment!' at the Barbican was a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear an album that went on to cast such a long shadow over later generations. The Dirty Three doing 'Ocean Songs' was great, especially with Nick Cave on piano, but the concert was not that much different that a normal concert by the instrumental group. Sparks, ever the mavericks, performed all their albums over this summer in an unprecedented marathon. 'Kimono My House' with its stand out tracks, 'This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us' and 'Amateur Hour', was an instant sell out. But this was not a band yearning for a short-lived heyday, but celebrating their whole output. The list goes on. Killing Joke have sold out performances of their eponymous first album and 'What’s THIS for…!' in December. And perhaps the strangest yet will come at the Barbican in November when Scott Walker’s obscure, haunting albums 'Tilt' and 'The Drift' will be performed, though, it is underlined, Walker himself will not perform. While it is veterans who indulge our love for their old albums, new bands are effectively touring albums. Whether it’s Glasvegas, the Courteeners or the Ting Tings, all will effectively be performing their debut albums in just about their entirety this year simply because that is the extent of their repertoire. And in many ways, when more established groups perform an album, it is that very euphoric early success that they are trying to recreate.