Mohan.
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COMMON WEALTH
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Tragically Hip
Mutton Birds
Empire, W12
IT WAS fitting that a concert by rock bands from Canada and New Zealand should take place at the Empire, which on Thursday night hosted scenes of expatriate passion to match the political fervour raging outside.
Aucklandís Mutton Birds, working themselves hoarse on a seemingly open-ended tour of Britain, were back as guests at a venue they headlined some weeks before, and put their account further into credit in the first half of an evening of articulate rockíníroll.
Of the material from their upcoming album, Envy of Angels, the warmest hand went to the engaging recent single Come Around. By then, Don McGlashanís band had restated their ability to merge fine melodies, absorbing lyrics and well-read influences from the Beatles to the Byrds. Particularly effective was A Thing Well Made, with its storyline - about a man who sells sporting goods - and vague air of oddness, heightened by McGlashanís euphonium.
Six albums into a hugely successful domestic career and 11 years after forming in Kingston, Ontario, the Tragically Hip remain underachievers in these parts. But you would not have known that from the rabid, note-perfect enthusiasm of this crowd, as leader Gordon Downie announced they were here to ìcelebrate your victories and cancel your defeatsî.
The lack of wider media awareness of their potent guitar attack and literate touch means that audiences simply cannot hear what they are missing. But among friends who cheered their every move, they combined the unalloyed energy of an R.E.M. with a cerebral lyrical approach , four-fifths of the band focusing purely on their instruments while Downie presented a magnetic combination of the urbane and the unhinged. Giftshop and 700ft Ceiling, the latter ìa song about unlimited potentialî, were among the most effective of the new batch.
This indomitable performance confirmed the Tragically Hipís continuing readiness for the big league. A decade down the line that status may be denied to them, but it will not be for lack of idiosyncratic charm. Downie only has to announce an unlikely lovesong about a dentist in the British Navy stationed in the Falkland Islands and you simply have to listen.
PAUL SEXTON