London Water Rats – 21st April 2004

Review

Review by brd

It’s packed with people and steaming hot in the Water Rats Theatre tonight, as is the band tonight when they leap into the closing set of Tim Booth & the Individuals mini-trial tour. The gig is edgier and harder than last night’s Cardiff outing, with one less acoustic song (Laid) and the addition of the powerful guitar driven show stopper Booth and the Bad Angel song Butterfly’s Dream.

The set is also more quickly paced, with shorter pauses between songs, and in one instance going straight from one song into another (I think it was Wave Hello and Eh Mama). This allows the band to better build up the momentum of the set as well as maintain it. That said, you don’t get as great an opportunity to witness Tim Booth’s budding career as a stand up comedian (truly quick wit that he is). As with last night’s Cardiff show, the band take good natured verbal shots at each other, and at one point Tim in mock exasperation asks keyboardist Lisa and songwriting partner/guitarist Lee to stop talking and shut up.

Set highlights tonight include upcoming singles Wave Hello, which just burns tonight, and Down to the Sea, as well sexual obsession ode In The Darkness, and older songs Dance Of The Bad Angel and Five-O. The audience responds well to the nine new songs they hear tonight, welcoming them with an open mind and deservedly quickly embraces them. As Sometimes is recognized, the audience starts singing along. The room belongs to Tim tonight.

A minor quibble, having had the pleasure of hearing the band two nights in a row, is that at times the instrumentation of the songs is too dense. At some points, say at the beginning or even the middle of a song, a simpler approach would provide a more powerful delivery due to the aural contrast. This is the case with Five-O in particular. Oh and did I say the set was TOO SHORT?

I also wonder if the new singles will be re-recorded prior to release as they have apparently changed tremendously since they were introduced live acoustically last fall after being recorded for the upcoming CD. With the other songs in the live set, it would be a tremendous shame if the powerful live delivery of the new songs (and the old ones too) would be lost to the general listening public (in particular those of us located in North America). A nice consolation would be to include soundcheck or live recordings as a Bone bonus disc and/or b-sides. A dvd single with live tracks would be great too.

When encore Fall In Love unfolds far too soon in the night, the audience is just swept off its feet. It feels as if you can reach up in the air and grab the emotion in your hands. The room is in suspended animation as the song ends, there is a moment of silence as everyone holds their breath, and the empty space quickly fills with applause. Damn, its over. What an amazing performance.

Back on my side of the Atlantic as I write this, I know it was worth every penny and effort to see these two Tim Booth shows and the birth of a new act. Thanks very much Tim. I can’t wait for the new single and CD. If Tim does a show within walking, train or driving distance of you this year, don’t think twice about seeing him.