Ye,s one of the laziest -if most influential - bands in the business are back on tour again, seemingly to celebrate having the back cover of their first album 'Marquee Moon' turned into a shopping bag. Or is it to celebrate the fact that it's 21 years since they last put out an album? Either way they have sold out The Roundhouse which seeing as they are lacking one of their two guitar geniuses is no mean feat. There again, when you replace Richard Lloyd with someone who may not be quite as well known but who is every bit as legendary (Jimmy Rip) perhaps it's not that surprising.
So I made it to the Roundhouse Just after MISTY MILLER came on as the opening act. She was playing solo with an electric guitar that sounded like she couldn't play that well, unlike the other member of the Miller family who would dazzle us all later on.
However, her poor guitar playing didn't matter once I started to listen to her singing and the lyrics on Just A Girl. I'd first assumed she was a cross between KT Tunstall and Katie Melua then as the lyrics hit home, I realised that lyrically she was more of a cross between PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch and Courtney Love: a real wolf in sheep's clothing as the seemingly sweet voice started telling us about how the girl was OD'ing on heroin and how she was also a prostitute.
Next was Star: not a cover of any other song of that name but another dark, troubled affair about what some particular star wanted to do. That was followed by the deeply dark and troubling The Devil's No longer Around, all about quitting heroin and prostitution to try to have a normal life. By this stage, you'll probably have guessed this was not cutesy music but very stark indeed: a point really proved on I Was Your Girlfriend - a phrase spat at the men who would consider her as girlfriend as they had paid for her to be just that. It was sordid and squalid and told from the viewpoint of a very young girl forced into a life she wanted no part of.
Wait kept us in the same dark territory and all the while her voice always sounded sweet and if not innocent then nowhere near as damaged as the lyrics suggest. Little Drummer seemed to be about finding her way out; only to be subjected to more abuse this time from a drummer who was part of the sordid abuse all around Misty Miller.
The Best Flood was a celebration of a big flood that damaged some places Misty wanted washed away and forgotten about. She finished her set with Taxi Cab: a truly heartbreaking song about being put in a Taxi Cab home after attending the sort of party you never want to be forced to go to as a young girl, sitting their broken, drugged out and in pain and feeling like dirt through force of circumstance.
I was really moved by the force of her lyrics and would love to see Misty again but with a full band to bring out the dark sorrow of her songs in the style of a female fronted Dead Cuts meets the Jacobites/Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers. She was not what I was expecting from Television's opening act but a very startling surprise on her own terms.
Soon enough it was time for Tom Miller to come out and once more bring Television to life as Tom Verlaine. They spent the first 5 minutes tuning up and noodling into the intro to the first classic of the night. Then again, when you've only put out three albums in the 38 years since the band formed in 1974 isn't too difficult. So when Tom's arm went up as a signal and they went into Venus, a big cheer went up and they sounded pretty damn incredible with Jimmy Rip taking the lead parts and sounding every bit as good as he did the first time I saw him play with Tom Verlaine and Fred Smith back in 1987 on one of Tom's rare solo tours.
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They went almost straight into Elevation that had most of the guys around me singing along and just watching what Jimmy Rip was doing was enough to keep me salivating as he bent those strings and did all sorts of moves to wring the notes out perfectly.
Next Up was the band's first single Little Johnny Jewel (parts 1 and 2). This one never made it onto any of the three albums but has always been a live classic and this version was no exception with Tom's hands seemingly vibrating up the neck of his guitar at several point while Fred Smith's bass playing just kept that solid underpinning needed for the fireworks coming from Tom and Jimmy.
We then got the only song they played off of the third album, a very cool version of 1880 Or So that led into a blistering version of Prove It with enough slow building parts and histrionics to keep everyone happy as once more this case was closed. Torn Curtain opened slowly and then built into that familiar sound and I was wondering if it was about the Iron Curtain or something less important, but either way it was great.
See No Evil saw Tom and Jimmy sparring like they were trying to see who could raise the bar highest. It would probably be Jimmy: what a guitarist he is, this made it easy to see why Mick Jagger would have thought he could replace Keef back when he had that mad idea...
Finally it was time for a "new song" (Persia) that is only new in that it's been in the set for about 10 years. They played it at ULU the last time I saw them, but this time I think it was longer and it has become a sprawling epic that could be three or four songs put together as one a monumental epic tale of Persia that may one day see a release. Here's hoping.
Then as with most of the set, it was back to Marquee Moon for Guiding Light: as soft and sweet as things got all night before they closed the set with a long and at time ferocious version of Marquee Moon itself that featured (as you'd expect) a false ending or two and some band introductions before they left the stage to a huge round of applause.
They came back out for a well-deserved encore that opened with the only song from Marquee Moon they hadn't played yet - Friction - and it sounded sublime with Billy Ficca's solid as a rock drumming underpinning Tom and Jimmy's guitar work to make it sound damn near perfect. They then finished with what sounded like a cover of an old soul classic, I'm Going To Find You, but was in fact an old Television demo from 1974 when they performed it at Terry Ork's Loft back in the days when the two Richards (Hell and Lloyd) were still in the band. It sounded tremendous and I hadn't heard it in a while since I last watched my DVD of the Orks Loft material. It was a fine choice of closing number.
So a great set that has left me wondering why they didn't play a single song from the second album Adventure and only one from the third album. Nonetheless, it didn't stop pretty much everyone going home happy and smiling after seeing a monumental gig.
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