I was excited to find that CATHERINE RINGER'S Ring 'N Roll tour was pulling into the Bush Hall for one night. It's a perfect venue to see her performing in and rather more intimate than the last time I saw her play in Les Rita Mitsouko at a very sold out show at the Scala in 2007 a couple of weeks before her partner in almost everything Fred Chichin died of cancer. Amazingly as part of an agreement with Fred she completed that tour that promoted their last album together Variety. Now she is back with her first solo album Ring 'n Roll produced by RZA and Marc Plati.
First up was CHRIS WOOODS who frankly come out with a bit of a scary intro when his first words were: "Hi, I'm Chirs Woods and I'm an instrumental guitarist, I'll be playing some of my compositions." Ulp, that means he's going to play a 40 minute guitar solo right? Um yes absolutely, it was all his own material and it was just him and a very reverb-by acoustic guitar.
The first piece was called For Michelle during which he demonstrated that he couldn't half play the guitar with his very long fingers stretching all over the fretboard as he rang out some spectral notes and brought up feelings of love for said Michelle on his guitar. The techniques he used were all about how fiddly he could get without ever doing anything so mundane as playing a riff or normal chords.
Rolling Hills made his guitar into, er, the sound of rolling hills on a relaxation CD of the sort Mark Hunton et al put out. If I had the right incense and the dark enough lighting I'd have been dreaming away nicely by the end of it.
He then showed that he had the audience on his side by getting them to split into ladies and gents to clap out two seperate rythymshe played along to for about 5 minutes and, yes, the audience kept up both rythyms throughout. Anyone playing solo guitar that can do that with an audience who are mostly not his fans has something for sure.
He then played Resilience for Trevor. That took a bit of resilience to get through, as his hands flew around and did all sorts of odd things on the guitar that made it clear why he played alone. Just the thought of him getting any other musicians who could keep up with him or play these very complex pieces would be tough, but then the tune sounded like it needed some orchestration or at least some tubas and trombones. He finished with one called Nightlife and it sounded unlike most nightlife I could think of but was apparently about living next door to a nightclub and what happened outside his place most nights.
He certainly has talent but I'd like to see him as part of a group rather than solo. I also resisted the chance to grab a CD that comes with a DVD of him giving guitar lessons. That might have been a bridge too far.
Soon enough it was time for the return of CATHERINE RINGER: infamous french actress and fabulous French singer here to test my extrememly poor French, especially as I seemed to be one of the few people in the Bush Hall who wasn't fluent in French!
They opened with Communiquer D'amour from Variety and Catherine was sounding quite angry as she almost spat the lyrics at us while her band of Keyboards whizz (7 different synths), guitar bass and drums sounded pretty much just like Les Rita Mitsouko.
After Catherine had said hello to us she did La Rouge which was an angry as all hell rap number during which she sounded like the angriest female rapper going, spitting bile at us while a great light show dramatically punctuated her lyrics. She stayed angry on a song I guess was about a psycho but my linguistic skills didn't run far enough to work out what the psycho had done to her to make her scream at him like that.
She then apologised for being so angry since Fred died and said it was time to dance and they went into Variety's big hit Ding Ding Dong. I have to say it's my least favourite Les Rita Mitsouko song but was redeemed by Catherine's salacious dancing as she sang about ding dang dong ringing at your bell. The dance moves left you in no doubt about the sexual nature of the song's lyrics or what she wanted you to do with the ding ding dong!
Melodia found her going all Edith Piaf chanson on us and it was really effective and a beautiful song, but Catherine is still a very angry woman and Pardon, which she introduced in English before singing in French (as she did for a lot of the songs tonight) was about her anger at people who say sorry when they don't need to and don't when they do need to. We all know the people she's having a go at and I'd back her standpoint 100%.
She then sang an English song This Little Bar about wanting to manage the sort of bar that is forever changing hands and turning it into some place cool. It's a great song and I want to go to the sort of bar that she'd run. She then introduced The Mermaid song or L't'end (Sp?) that featured her dancing like she was a mermaid and damn you couldn't take your eyes off her as her body shook and swayed and shimmied while she sang.
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The first big hit of the night was Tongue Dancer and Catherine demonstrated exactly what a tongue dancer is before, during and after the song and damn I want her tongue to dance for me. It was rude and just downright filthy, as the band came close to sounding like the William Orbit mix of the song, she was downright Bewitching with her tongue dancing and how far her tongue sticks out of her mouth.
They kept the hits coming with a great version of Andy, one of the big ones from the Tony Visconti-produced The Non Comprendo album. It's a song that still sounds great, though it took me a few years to realise its about Andy Bassapella and not Andy Warhol. Tonight they even did the original spoken word intro with the guitarist joining in the conversation before the song gets going properly and just about everyone in the Bush Hall sings along.
I'm not sure about the next couple of songs. I have 'em down as S'il vous plait and P'our Moi but whatvere they were called they were mighty good and the band were certainly kicking it along with the help of Catherine on gutar as well as vocals. When she wasn't dancing all over the place that is. Although these days she doesn't climb the speaker stacks like she used to in the 80's when I first saw Les Rita Mitsouko.
She gave a long introduction to An Invitation to Missy Elliot that included an explanation of who Missy Elliot is! I do hope everyone there already knows, the song is about asking her to produce Ring 'n Roll and being turned down: a good song about not getting what you want and nicely tongue in cheek. Yes it's sung in English so I know what its about for sure....
Next was another slower and almost chanson number called (possibly) L'comme C'es.t I think its also from the new album that I don't have yet, it sounds a lot like an Etienne Daho song from Corps et Armies CD. This was followed by an upbeat dance number Come On Yeah that is also another quite rude come on song about wanting to let someone know you want them.
They brought the set to a close with Pourquoi, a good if marginally angry song asking a lot of questions and Rendevous Avec Moi-meme that was one of the stand out tunes on Variety. At this point the crowd went mad as they always do at the end of any show I've seen Catherine do as part of Les Rita Mitsouko.
After a short amount of delirous clapping she returned alone and dedicated the first song of the encore to Fred and it is the beautifully elegaic Mahler where she sings a love letter to her lost life partner Fred Chichin over a Mahler Adagio. It was very emotionally sung in a full on virtually operatic voice and by the end of it Catherine had tears running down her face as did several audience members.
The band then rejoined her and they did a Hawaiin dance type number that was rather odd after the Mahler tune but they then went into the hits again for Un Soir Un Chien. That got everyone singing again as did Vol De Nuit which guaranteed a second encore during which Catherine thanked us all for sticking with her and coming out to see them play.
The second encore opened with another new song that I don't know the name of before she pleased everyone by closing with C'est Comme Ca: probably the biggest hit from The No Comprendo. Just about everyone was dancing and singing to that one and Catherine did all the original dance moves that many of the audience were also doing in unison. A great end to a great show. It's good to have Catherine back and I must find the new album now!
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