Re: Patti - Meltdown - 20 June 2005

[Andrew F Wilson <andrewfwilson>]

Mixed signals from Television
Meltdown Festival: Television, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London  
By Keith Shadwick
The Independent, 22 June 2005

At their best, Television are one of those bands whose music gets
thrillingly into your bones, the searing tones of the twin Fender
guitars of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd driven home by an intense
and dramatic pattern developed by the bassist Fred Smith and the
drummer Billy Ficca.

But when things don't quite work, the band are listless and devoid of
passion, the music strangely colourless and uncommunicative. They
delivered both aspects of themselves at Meltdown to a crowd almost
falling over themselves in readiness to adore every note.

This unfortunate dichotomy is present probably because Verlaine, the
group's quixotic leader and chief songwriter, keeps everything on such
a tight leash but is himself all too vulnerable to distractions and
vexations other performers would brush aside. So, in a 90-minute set
that allowed no interval and concentrated on music either from the
epochal 1976 album Marquee Moon or Television's efforts in the
Nineties, but almost entirely skipped 1978's Adventure, Verlaine spent
more time fretting about his electronic guitar tuner rather than
getting on with giving the audience what they were almost pleading for
- Television in full flight.

Verlaine's increasingly distracted mood eventually impinged on the
music. Yet there were times when the music was so good, and so
thrilling, that the gig was on the verge of greatness. A driving
version of "Venus" was hampered only by understrength vocal miking,
but the rolling twin-guitar patterns and thunderous drums of "See No
Evil" were overwhelming.

Virtually all major solos on the night were handed to Lloyd. Given
Verlaine's skittishness, this turned out to be a good thing, for
Lloyd, a player rarely given his due either in the band or in rock
generally, turned in three solos during the set that had the entire
band stomping behind him in a kind of dervish frenzy and audience
mouths dropping open in awe. His combination of tone, idea and sheer
edge took him into a class of player where the names Jeff Beck and
Stevie Ray Vaughn are not entirely inappropriate.

Verlaine, whose more lyrical style is normally a perfect contrast to
Lloyd's quicksilver, slashing attack, was sufficiently out of sorts to
limit himself to the occasional brief foray amid a good deal of
workmanlike chording. His great set-piece, the long drama of "Marquee
Moon", was kept until last in the set but went very wrong indeed.

The original recording offers an object lesson in how to build to an
overpowering climax. On this night, Verlaine became impatient with
himself and his solo, often taking his hand off the fretboard and
shaking it as if he'd got cramps, then finally just cutting to the
chase and leading the rest of the group into the heavily staccato
patterns that deliver the tune's climax. This part at least worked,
spilling the composition's motherlode all over the audience, but then
Verlaine allowed the whole thing to unravel in a couple of minutes of
inconsequential doodling as the band watched him intently for a clue
as to how they were to end this thing.

Lack of rehearsal? Lack of care? Anyway, with the song ended the band
exited stage left as soon as possible. It was at least five minutes
before they straggled back on, this time with Patti Smith, to deliver
a rather bloodless "You I Rate".

With Smith exiting to cheers, the band plunged into a short,
incoherent rabble of noises and rhythms that would have been more
appropriate at an avant-garde free improvisation concert: a virtual
V-sign to the audience. Then they were gone for good and the house
lights went up. The best of times, the worst of times.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=648877