So you've released the best album of your career to date, featuring a 24 piece orchestra on most tracks and several gorgeous ballads, and now you have to tour. What do you do? Well if you're Chris Mills, you take up a trusty rhythm section in the form of The New Miserable Bastards, plug in your electric guitar, hit the distortion pedal and, quite simply, rock out.
Your reviewer has been lucky enough to catch Mills on four previous occasions, twice with a band, once with a drummer and once solo, but tonight's performance is surely his strongest so far. I hadn't heard any of Chris's new material prior to the gig, but the word was good, and truth be told, what with all the talk of lush arrangements, I was kind of expecting the mellower side of this considerable talent to be on show.
Therefore I was a bit taken back when he kicked off "A Farewll to Arms" on the aforementioned buzzed up electric, tossing of all manner of shapes that Pete Townshend would be proud of. That Chris, and Ryan Hembrey on harmony vocals to supplement his bass duties, clearly relished delivering the song's 'lover lay your weapons down lyric' was made blindingly obyious by their inability to hold a straight face for anything longer than ten seconds.
This approach pretty much set the tone for the majority of the set, which leaned heavy on new long-player "The Wall to Wall Sessions" and 2002's "The Silver Line". Early contributions from the latter included "Diamond" and "Suicide Note", which both benefited from being bumped up a notch or two tempo-wise, and "Sleeptalking", a showcase for the versatility of the New Miserable Bastards' latest acquisition on drums, Jay Dodds.
The dexterous Hembrey and powerhouse Dodds were locked in throughout, and coped effortlessly with some of the trickier time-shifts, such as the slowdown to waltz time in "Escape from New York" and the new quasi-disco rhythm on the chorus of "Dry Eye". Throughout all three perform as if they're onstage in a decent-size arena, as opposed to the somewhat more intimate surroundings of the Tron's Victorian Bar.
Mills has certainly grown in confidence as both a writer and performer since "The Silver Line" tour, and tonight treats us to three new numbers. The first of these, "Atom Smashers", is a poptastic (in the best way) wonder in the style of "Sleeptalking", with yet another killer chorus. Let's face it, any song with the line 'kiss for me Hitler and Tojo' deserves to be in all good record collections. Unfortunatley the track is currently unreleased, proof, Chris tells us, that he is a "marketing genius".
If he falters at all this evening, it is during his just guitar and vocal rendition of the song "The Silver Line", which seems to be an odd choice for his solo spot, and suffers from the temporary absence of The New Miserable Bastards. "Dancing on the Head of a Pin", on the other hand, goes down a treat, and benefits from the contribution of Liam and Sofie of The Have Nots on guest backing vocals.
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Ryan and Jay return to make their presence felt on "The World Some Sad Hour", Jay especially in this case, with a suitably "soulful" backing vocal cry of 'no you can't give up...no you can't give in' at the coda, which has Chris doing his best cheshire cat impression again. "All You Ever Do" follows, the lone representative from 2000's 'Kiss It Goodbye', and Chris's rendition is style every bit as impassioned as it was in The Lobby Bar in Cork five years previously. "You Are My Favourite Song" somehow manages to top both of the above, as it barrels along in an irresistable, and very very joyful manner.
However Mills is every bit as adept at wrenching every last iota of emotion from a lyric as he is at dispensing peerless power pop, and tonight's two major lump-in-throat moments come courtesy of "In The Time of Cholera" and "Constellations". The latter brings the main set to a heartfelt and hopeful close, but it is the former that steals the show tonight. Chris's performance has the audience hanging on every word, only to have our hearts broken again each time he reaches the refrain, 'I've been waiting my whole life just to love you again'.
Not many artists would have the balls, or indeed the songwriting chops, to encore with two brand new songs. "Calling All Comrades" suggests that he may in fact have an entire album full of punk-pop nuggets, a la The Buzzcocks say, in reserve. "I Wish I Was A Bomb" by contrast highlights his ability to write a touching, original and at times downright eccentric lyric, in this case detailing his desire to be a bomb, so that he could "blow up every motherfucker in this place". It's worth bearing in mind that this line is delivered over the sparsest of guitar backings with the gentlest of melodies.
Somehow it all works wonderfully and the Glaswegian faithful only reluctantly let go of a cracking gig. Here's hoping next time around said faithful will bring along a fresh bunch of converts, and Chris Mills will at last get to play to audiences of a size more suited to his talents.
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