It's almost exactly 10 years since I last went to Sheffield City Hall to see The Cocteau Twins, and it's with the same feverish anticipation of seeing something that I've spent years listening to that I feel as we speed down the motorway to the City of Steel. OK, so speed is an exaggeration as we hit Meadowhall's traffic as it leaves from a hard days Christmas shopping, but you get the picture. Indulge me!
Inside the Hall is magnificent and a mixed audience of students, dance urchins, 30 and 40somethings and what I can only assume to be those who've come in the vain hope of hearing stuff from "Animal Rights" mingle quietly waiting for the support act.
This proves to be LAMB: news to me, but I've heard a couple of good things by them and I've been told they are excellent live. This proves to be more than true. Lou's husky voice introduces them: she's skinny, dressed in black and sings like Beth Gibbons does in Portishead's jazzier moments, but then sounds like...well, the singer from Lamb. They are a unique looking bunch of individuals. She could be in a Goth band; a couple of the group coud be rave escapees and the guitarist has a red mohawk and a bolt through his nose! The songs are lithe, jazzy rocky, tribally rhythmic and many other things all at once.
Opener "This Could Be Heaven" has quiet bits, lovely bits, jazzy bits and rocky bits - all held together by the band's clear enthusiasm for what they do - you can see it on their faces - come to the front and share your energy they implore. Sadly, the security guys and gals at the front put the kybosh on this: the one in front of me telling one punter (very loudly) in the middle of a quiet bit that "They're called LAMB - like the roast!" Thanks, love!
They play their new single "Gabriel", out next year. I'll be buying that and investing in more of their back catalogue. Moby has kindly lent them his string section, the CH12 Strings and they join them for one song.
LAMB play their hearts out and all too soon they are gone. I know they've been around for ages, but this kind of exposure will do them no harm - expect them to be headlining around you soon.
After a short break - with roadies frantically moving equipment and scaling ladders to get to the lighting rig the lights dim once again.
MOBY enters stage left and sprints around, darting between band members, a ball of energy. The sound is fantastic; he runs around the stage, wearing (of all things) a Cramps T-shirt - guitar in hand, while the band show off their skills. There's not much communication with the audience in terms of intros to songs or hellos, but the songs themselves are perfect communication in themselves.
Some people have accused Moby of producing advertising music, but this is emotional music that just happens to get used by ad execs to sell stuff and he quite rightly takes adantage of this to get his music across to the widest audience. Some people say his music is dinner party stuff - modern day Sade. I say - on the strength of what I can see tonight - if you played this at your dinner table - your party would go with one hell of a swing, so mind the focaccia! "In This World" and "Go" are played before he says hello. He's funny, warm and self-deprecating.
He pays tribute to Sheffield's local heroes, such as The Human League, Heaven 17 and Cabaret Voltaire, saying they were a huge influence on him growing up. This gets an enormous cheer.
The obligatory "New Dawn Fades" (Joy Division cover) is played, showing off his Manchester influences as well, followed by an off the cuff rendition of the Leadbelly/ Louvin Bros/ Nirvana perennial "In The Pines." "I've always wanted to cover that but I should rehearse these things in private," he says by way of apology. Meanwhile, the "James Bond Theme" rocks hard and he treats us to a mini review of the new film, telling us it's "Shit."
Tracks come mainly from "Play and "18", which leaves the audience happy. Particular highlights are "South Side", "Find My Baby", "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?", "One Of These Mornings", "Extreme Ways" and "Honey." This latter, he reveals, is not at all spiritual, but about "a girl who wants to fuck her brains out until her back gives way while her boyfriend's out of town." Well, I never.
"Natural Blues," "Machete", "In My Heart", "One Of These Mornings", "Extreme Ways" and "Signs Of Love" are all excellent - adding to the recorded versions by dint of a full band attending to their needs. Many of the band are English, allowing Moby's Anglophile tendencies to run free again.
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The band add so much, especially Diane Charlemagne, who - despite coming from less than soul-infested Manchester - sounds like she's from some gospel-infused US town. She sings wonderfully, adding a warm emotional touch where the old folk samples lie on the records.
Towards the end of the show, "We Are All Made Of Stars" proves a real crowd pleaser. It's a song about "astrophysics" apparently, though that's no stranger than hearing a snippet of Guns'n'Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine" thrown in between songs.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," says Moby at the show's end - after checking constantly during the performance whether we're having a good time. Of course we are.
The encore is excellent, including a jazz-based introduction to the band members - when the Country and Western intro is abandoned as a bad idea. There's a "DJ Battle" with Roger 'RJ' Johnson (voted the world's best DJ by MIXMAG) and "me. Moby". They don funky afro wigs. Moby complains that his "always looks like a piece of shit," while Roger's always looks cool. They play around, having a good time, playing the fool.
Eventually, Moby runs offstage and disappears for a minute or so, before returning sheepishly. He explains that they ran off - through a door, expecting to get through to the audience, but instead found themselves in a closet. "It was a Spinal Tap moment," he explains. "On tour you're never far from Spinal Tap," he jokes.
After a few more choice sonic workouts, he's off with more "Thank you, thank you, thank yous," - bidding us farewell after 2 hours of music and watching him running around, alternating between guitar, keyboards, bongos and decks. The merchandise stall seems to have done well, judging by the number of T-shirts being flashed around, wlthough the prices (£45 for a sweatshirt) seemed steep, especially with bootleggers undercutting the official ones by more than 75%!
That's the only visible sign of corporate crap here. It may be used for advertising cars, but all I want to buy after the show is more Moby stuff, not to mention some gear by Lamb. Thanks to both bands for a great show.
Sadly there's a no camera rule at the venue and I didn't get a photo pass- went to www.moby.com for some photos - none there - but there's a great journal section - here's what Moby had to say about the day
"in sheffield today and the sky is leaden and i'm very tired like a little cranky baby.
we've been out of email range for the last couple of days, thus my lack of journal entries. and now i'm in email range and the best that i can do is to say that the sheffield sky is leaden and that i'm tired.
it is not grim up north, but it does seem to be grey up north more often than not.
which is ok. it just forces people to stay inside where they can make interesting music. i mean, could heaven 17 and cabaret voltaire ever have come from barbados?
no, stephen mallinder and richard kirke (if my electro trivia is accurate) would've been surfing and cutting sugar cane and the world never would've heard 'sensoria'. and the world without 'sensoria' would've been a much less interesting place.
why don't electronic musicians use their own vocals anymore? remember the good old days of cabaret voltaire and nitzer ebb and meat beat manifesto and front 242 and daf and etc when electronic musicians sang on their own records?i think that electronic musicians should start singing on their own records. that is my little thought for the day. thank you.
moby"
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