The Vagaries Of Live Performance

Flaming Lips (Manchester Academy 1 – 16^th November 2009)
Laura Marling (Salford Sacred Trinity – 19^th November 2009)

Live music can be a wonderful experience; a thing of joy. It can also be a sober, reflective experience. Perhaps it is the range of emotions that seeing musicians perform can bring out which is one of the reasons why we – especially in the UK – are such avid gig-goers.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended two sold-out gigs within a few days of each other that couldn’t be more different in their execution. The Flaming Lips and Laura Marling are both critical darlings - although in different genres of music - and they are at different stages of their careers.

The Flaming Lips are well renowned for their live show, having honed it over the past ten years at festivals across the globe. Their antics range from the giant ball that front-man Wayne Coyne goes crowd-surfing in, from fake blood and close up cameras to a collection of people on the side of the stage dressed up in giant animal costumes. It is these actions that bring about a great expression of joy and fun between the band and the crowd and remains one of the fundamental things that bind the performance together.

From the moment the set opened with Race For The Prize and launching into songs from Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, the album which helped to break them in this country, the capacity crowd inside the Manchester Academy were with them for the journey and were jumping around in appreciation.

In contrast, seeing Mercury prize nominated Laura Marling perform solo to around 100 people sat cross-legged on the floor of a church in Salford makes for a different evening, but no less special.

There is something incredible about watching her perform completely solo, with just an acoustic guitar to accompany her haunting vocals. When everything is stripped back this much, it makes you realise just what a fantastic guitarist she is; delicate and simple but always inventive; from her folk-style fingerpicking to playing single bass strings on their own, she is a master of creating tension in her music and giving her voice the opportunity to resolve these tensions.

Having seen Marling play at much bigger venues than this over the past few years, it was refreshing to hear of her latest tour being a completely self-. Between Laura and her support act Pete Roe, they were driving up and down the country to gigs themselves, without any real entourage but a friend or two. They would then play tiny venues, without any great financial benefits presumably (given the number of people that they were playing to) and let these select people hear her new songs in a no-pressure environment.

It is almost hard to believe that a record company would allow such a tour to happen for one of their most up-and-coming artists, but it seems that Marling has already developed a sense of artistic control over all of her work. In Salford Sacred Trinity Church, her new songs shimmered around the incredible surroundings, with all suggestions being that her new album will be even better than her first.

Unlike Laura, the Flaming Lips neglected to play a lot of their newer material. Their recently released album Embryonic is a challenging, unconventional and high-concept double album which takes a number of listens to actively become involved with. It wasn’t surprising that they didn’t play a lot of songs from this album, mainly because it would’ve put a little bit of a downer on proceedings.

Whereas Laura Marling can perhaps get away with testing audience reaction of new material in small venues without any pressure, the Flaming Lips don’t have that luxury. Their live shows have audience expectations of joy, over-the-top antics and a healthy amount of the peace and love hippy philosophy.

Going to see the Flaming Lips is a fantastic experience and one of the few bands that I would recommend anyone that I knew to go and see, regardless of their taste in music. They have created this experience, as opposed to the normal formalities of a live show and it is a joy to behold. I do wonder how they manage to keep this level of joy so high up, especially when they seem to be making much darker, challenging music when they’re away from the stage.

As much as I love the Flaming Lips, I can’t help but want a slightly more authentic experience from them next time. They could do much worse than get advice from Laura Marling on that one.

Juliet Gloriously Naked

There are a few artistic releases every year or so that excite me. A new Woody Allen or Pedro Almodovar film; a new Radiohead album or a new series of HBO television magic all bring out that feeling of anticipation. When it comes to novels, I don't have the same number of exciting days with a single exception: A new Nick Hornby book.

It doesn't matter whether it’s a collection of his published essays (Polysyllabic Spree) or a novel for young adults (Slam) or his recent breathtakingly good novels (A Long Way Down) the quality and warmth of the writing makes it something that I always look forward to. It is also something that doesn't last; from the minute I started reading High Fidelity all those years ago I was hooked. Hooked to the point that I read High Fidelity in two sittings over a day and a half; highly inconvenient as I stayed up until 3am in the morning to finish it and had to get my zombified body to work a few hours later.

Ever since then it's been the same pattern; I would become that excited when a new novel came out that I'd have it over and done with in a few days. So, when his new work Juliet, Naked came out a few months ago I was determined to savour and enjoy it over a longer period of time.

Juliet, Naked is like High Fidelity set in the modern age. Gone are the compilation tapes, top 5 lists and record shops; this is 2009, man. This is the world of the internet, of bootleg concerts and obsessive fan worshipping. The basic story is thus: Man is obsessed with reclusive rock star to the point of destroying his relationship with Woman and is part of an internet community of obsessives. When Woman infiltrates this world and writes a review of a new CD of old demos, she causes a further rift with Man but embarks on a rather peculiar online relationship with the Reclusive Rock Star himself.

This is the celebrity age of fandom, where we are all consumers and are given so many more avenues to fuel this consumption. What is fantastic about the novel is that it spends the first half of the novel building this up, only to knock it down as you discover just how flawed the object of this fandom is as a human being.

Since the success of Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, Hornby has dabbled with different narrative structures on all of his novels. His big early success was writing from the male point of view, so he switched to the female with How To Be Good, making his lead character every bit as flawed and likable and amusing as the male ones that launched his career. Since then, A Long Way Down established a six way narrative where six characters told their individual stories in small segmented diary entries, while Slam focused in on teenage focused narrative.

Juliet takes the best bits out of all of these ideas. We have the story strands from all three main characters going concurrently and in doing so it makes all of these people identifiable. Sure, they're all flawed fuck-ups who are drifting through life but that's what makes the writing so warm. These are real people, with real flaws and real problems. Middle class existential problems admittedly but let’s not let that detract. By allowing all three story strands to develop independently, it gives us the opportunity to understand, like and empathise with each of the characters.

Ultimately, all Hornby books have similar themes and this is no different. His novels are about empathy and empathising with people; about family and how we struggle to understand how this fundamental part of our world works; about how the arts and music tend to reflect how we see ourselves; about how human beings often take a funny journey to get to a very obvious place or decision.

In summary then: Juliet, Naked is another work of triumph from Nick Hornby. And I finished it in a couple of days.