I enjoyed watching the Lemonheads fall apart on stage more than perhaps I should have
Nowadays, when the default setting for live music is ruthlessly choreographed efficiency, there is a queasy kind of thrill in watching a performance forever teetering on the edge of pure unprofessional pandemonium. Which is to say, I enjoyed watching the Lemonheads fall apart on stage more than perhaps I should have.
The Lemonheads are and always were Evan Dando fronting whatever revolving cast of associates are willing to put up with him. This is both the band’s great superpower and its eternal Achilles’ heel. Dando is a fine and heartful singer, songwriter and interpreter. He is also the loosest of loose cannons.
The pin-up boy of early 1990s US indie-rock is now 58 and resembles the Dude from The Big Lebowski. He has endured a torrid few decades of hard drug addiction from which he is now, apparently, in recovery, although this Glasgow show certainly raised a few questions over his general wellbeing. It was shambolic, spontaneously chaotic and combustible – but there were
negatives, too.
Where to start. With the thankfully mostly incomprehensible rant involving the words ‘fatwa’, ‘jihad’ and ‘Salman Rushdie’? With Dando lobbing what looked like tiles from the stage, one of which nosedived horribly into the crowd at head height? With him kicking over the microphone stand? As he and two hired hands performed the 1993 album Come On Feel The Lemonheads in its entirety to a standard that oscillated wildly between excellent and dreadful, his bass player and drummer frequently looked sheepish and bemused.
Things became even odder once they had departed. A bizarre half-hour of solo cover versions often felt like watching a drunken hipster at a house party failing to read the room (a room which by now was steadily emptying as disgruntled punters headed for the exit). Dando crooned and caterwauled songs by Husker Du, Edwyn Collins, The Flamin’ Groovies, Buzzcocks, Gram Parsons and – oh look, I’d lost count by the time he busked through 30 seconds of The Beatles’ ‘I Don’t Want to Spoil The Party’, at which point it had become clear that the audience wasn’t going to hear most of the Lemonheads songs they wanted to hear.
There was a whiff of Dadaist pranksterism about it all, particularly because Dando sporadically snapped into focus. He didn’t fluff a line, and although his voice was frequently hoarse and flat – the demands of singing against loudly amplified guitar, bass and drums did it few favours – when the going got mellow its soulful quality was evident, particularly on gorgeous versions of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Snow Don’t Fall’ and Gram Parsons’ ‘How Much I Lied’.
At the end, bassist and drummer returned only to be left dangling as Dando walked off stage following some heavily gesticulated angst over his guitar. The house lights went up, more people left, then he re-emerged to play ‘Confetti’ and ‘The Deep End’ with his colleagues. The trio sounded punchy, solid, locked in. Go figure. You wouldn’t want to be Dando or, I suspect, be employed as his band mate or tour manager, but for all his messiness there was something stirring about seeing an artist responding to his impulses in real time.
No such concerns with AC/DC, one of the most ruthlessly drilled machines in the business. There’s nothing loose about their cannons, which were unleashed at Murrayfield, as per tradition, during the closing cacophony of ‘For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)’.
The AC/DC setlist is now as fixed and familiar as any Shakespeare play
Having negotiated the strange interregnum where singer Brian Johnson was sidelined and Axl Rose deputised as lead singer, the Platonic ideal of a rock band is fully operational once more. The final UK date on the PWR/UP tour was as glorious as it was predictable. The AC/DC setlist is now as fixed and familiar as any Shakespeare play; as ever, they played all the hits at ear-crushing volume, accompanied by spectacular visuals and ludicrously entertaining pyrotechnics.
As they powered through ‘Back In Black’, ‘Shoot To Thrill’, ‘Highway To Hell’, ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’, ‘High Voltage’, ‘Let There Be Rock’ et al, Johnson and guitarist Angus Young appeared cartoon-like, Young in his blue velvet schoolboy’s uniform, Johnson in flat cap, black jeans and sleeveless shirt.
Although the best AC/DC songs exist in a state of eternally suspended adolescence, age is coming for the men who play them. The string-melting riff of ‘Thunderstruck’ was a little too sprightly for Young, while Johnson’s paint-stripping shriek suffered the occasional malfunction. To a far less extreme degree than the Lemonheads, to witness human vulnerability breaching the band’s tank-like defences ultimately only enriched the experience.
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