This is the third night of Pere Ubu's current Co-ed Jail tour featuring the return of Tom Hermann for the first time since 2002. Tom apparently also chose what songs the rest of the band played from their two recent box sets of archival material, Architecture Of Language and Elitism For the People which cover the period 1975-1982. He is joined by Steve Mehlmann, Michelle Temple, Robert Wheeler and of course David Thomas for a night of classic Pere Ubu material.
First on, however, are Rats On Rafts, proving that the set I saw them play a couple of weeks ago warming up for Tape Hiss Jail night was no fluke.
Their opening tune had a long slow intro and an insistent repeating motif that built and built before the vocals eventually came in and it has to be said were never high enough in the mix to be remotely easy to figure out, but they seemed to really grab the audience.
The second song morphed out of the end of the first and they never bothered allowing us time to clap between songs at all while the mountainous riff was built. I think David Fagan was singing about becoming tomorrow but the vocals were so indistinct as to be hard to tell. This also made them sound less like Echo & The Bunnymen than they did last time. Anyway, that track gave way to the punishing maelstrom of noise over which David Fagan told an ex to "go, just leave and get away" from him. It has a great drum bit as the bass and guitars dropped out and then got built back up.
They then launched into their devastating take on Some Velvet Morning which had a wall of feedback leading into the chorus and then the guitarist Arnauld was screeching his vocals over David's. It was scary and also very effective in bringing out the paranoia in the song as it built and ebbed.
Next was a song about going To somewhere I couldn't make out, but I do know it had a very insistent repeating riff that allowed the band to fly off at tangents and still have this anchor in the middle. They closed with Machine 1-6-8, which felt like a nervous breakdown set to imploding guitars trying to destroy the central motif the song revolved around. A great ending to a cool set that only needed a better vocal mix to be a really great one.
By the time Pere Ubu came on, the Dome was packed making it easily one of the biggest turn outs for the band in London for quite a few years. From the opening intro to Heart Of Darkness it was apparent that this was Pere Ubu in crowd pleasing mode as Robert Wheeler's analogue synth intertwined with Tom Hermann's guitar and that mighty sound built over David Thomas' vocals.
On The Surface had an almost talking in tongues intro from David that sounded like it was in a similar vein to some of the intros that can be heard on live tapes of the band in the 70's. This also gave Robert time to adjust the settings on the synth ready for explosion of sound that Steve Mehlman was trying to anchor down with his drumming. It was interesting that Steve's drums were set up on the stage and not the drum riser as Rats On Rafts' had been.
Petrified had the first real use of Robert Wheeler's Theremins as well as his synths and combined with the odd percussion box David was playing, it had a cool and eerie edge to it. As with most of this set it also had a dislocated funk edge to it.
Real World was as close to straight ahead funk as they got and provoked lots of dancing in the audience as well as a large singalong on the chorus as Michelle Temple's bass seemed to go all Nile Rodgers on us. Rhapsody In Pink had a strained intro before seeming to take off in about 4 directions at once and somehow the splintered sound coalesced and got more oddly funky like a really off key Talking Heads.
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The Modern Dance was about as good as I've ever heard them play it over the years with some great Theremin. They were firing on all cylinders. Navvy went well out there with the swirling Theremin sounds over Tom's scratchy guitar sound as David yelped the lyrics. Small Was Fast flew by in a whirr of Synth noises and meaty bass pulses.
Codex had one of the more intelligible intros and as David started telling us he thought about us all the time and the drums just seemed to be straining at the leash it all got a bit wild before they nailed it. Rounder, meanwhile, had some heartfelt lyrics to a love walking out the door as David tore himself up and the dislocated funk got dirtier and a bit more disjointed.
The Long Walk Home had a severe feeling of dread about it as if something bad was going to happen at any point along the way. My Dark Ages kept the creeping paranoia wrapping it up in a super intense guitar solo and Theremin madness.
Dub Housing had the funkiest bass line of the evening and was almost straight ahead which is a real odd turn in any Pere Ubu set. Misery Goats had David mumbling and moaning like a good 'un but it was the only time all night that he sounded unhappy as he told us the things he wanted to do.
The Fabulous Sequel was more the real miasma of sound rather than a sequel and sounded magnificent for it. The Vulgar Boatman is one of those songs that always kind of gets me and this was no exception even if I did wonder if they wanted to float a boat on the swimming pool that apparently sits beneath the dance floor of this venue.
Over My Head went down a storm as you'd expect and Robert was getting more and more animated on the Theremin as the show progressed. Caligari's Mirror just sounded like the classic distressed Avant-funk tune it always dreamed of being.
Heaven would be an accurate description of the reaction tonight from a good part of the audience to this performance as the set was pretty much spot on throughout. Sentimental Journey seemed to be played less for laughs than it has at times but sounded great either way.
They closed with a long distended version of Humor Me with full on Theremin and bass madness and a very tight guitar solo that was enough to guarantee the place erupted into applause at the end and that Ubu would be back for a well-earned encore.
The band reappeared one by one and started to improvise and build the intro for David to walk back on as the sound coalesced into the intro for Final Solution and a big cheer went up as they stormed through it. At the end David mocked us for following convention and cheering him when he came back on, but this was very light-hearted compared to how he can be at times. They finished the show with a cool version of West Side Story that left everyone smiling and happy at having seen a really great Pere Ubu show. The tour continues around Europe and is well worth catching if you can.
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