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alloy-digest         Sunday, December 9 2007         Volume 12 : Number 183



                               Today's Subjects:
                               -----------------
  Alloy: FW: [TITM] Review of Manchester gig from The Independent (UK)  ["Ma]

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Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 14:47:00 -0800
From: "Mary A Brown" <Mary_A_Brown@compuserve.com>
Subject: Alloy: FW: [TITM] Review of Manchester gig from The Independent (UK)

So there I am, reading this review along with tons of others on the Tongue
in the Mail list for the Finn fans when all of a sudden I see a familiar
name (paragraph 7 for those who don't have the patience to read it all).
Hmm, one degree of separation between two of my favorite musicians...Anybody
know this band?
 
Mary

  _____  

From: ch-bounces@lists.wsu.edu [mailto:ch-bounces@lists.wsu.edu] On Behalf
Of Mark J Leydon
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:10 PM
To: ch@lists.wsu.edu
Subject: [TITM] Review of Manchester gig from The Independent (UK)




http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article3231160.ece 


Crowded House, MEN Arena, Manchester; Sons of Albion/ Big Linda, Barfly,
Brighton 
Published: 07 December 2007 

When a band gets back together after a lengthy hiatus, it's easy to assume
that its members have run out of options or ideas and are just trying to
recapture past glories. Not so Crowded House. Once the leader Neil Finn
asked the bass player Nick Seymour to contribute to what was intended to be
another solo album, this most organic of reformations became inevitable. 


Rather than touting a greatest hits set - even if they start with the old
favourite "Private Universe" - Crowded House are touring Time on Earth,
their sixth studio album. With Seymour teasing the intro on the Wurlitzer,
the gorgeous "Don't Stop Now" - the best song on the album - comes early as
the insistent Police-like riff builds until it swirls around your brain. 


An inspired lyricist, Finn can turn the most mundane of starting points - in
that instance the shortcomings and frustrations of satnav - into a yearning
plea for his wife to get home, and throw in a few lines about the
predicament of the writer in front of a blank sheet of paper. 


Finn has insisted that this isn't a one-off reunion, that the group are a
going concern, and Time on Earth does indeed contain some of their best
work. Not that the sedate audience takes poignant songs like "Pour le Monde"
or "People Are Like Suns" to its collective bosom instantly. Crowded House's
simmering melodies made them a slow-burning act until they exploded into the
mainstream with Woodface, their third album, which spent nearly two years in
the British charts in the early Nineties. So the sinuous "Fall At Your Feet"
gets a rapturous welcome but the Time on Earth material will take a little
longer to sink in. 


Over in Brighton, meanwhile, is the new generation of rock. Classic rock has
never gone away: to wit Big Linda and their support band Sons of Albion, who
have Logan Plant on vocals. As soon as he stars wailing about "evil ways",
there's no mistaking the son of Robert Plant. More androgynous-looking than
his father ever was, he can't help having some of the mannerisms and a
piercing register. 


Ironically, Big Linda sound more like Led Zeppelin than their support band,
especially on "Get It While You Can" and "Suddenly Attacked". An
infuriatingly schizophrenic group, they are really much more effective on
the taut, tight "Golden Girl", with its urgent riff and its heady chorus
echoing The Damned. Too often, as on the wannabe epic "Another Way", they
muster more bluster than swagger. 


Mind you, their inspired version of Thomas Dolby's "Windpower" has its
moments, especially when Patrick Murdoch slides a drumstick down the neck of
his guitar. Big Linda have a big sound, but they need to rein it in once in
a while. 


Pierre Perrone 

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End of alloy-digest V12 #183
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