Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Village of the Damned

A trip to see M. Night Shyamalan's The Village proved to be an expensive, and deeply unrewarding experience. To be honest, I was not expecting cinematic alchemy as Shyamalan has been on a distinctly downward spiral since 'The Sixth Sense', but I had not prepared myself for anything quite this terrible. If I was Shyamalan, I'd have taken a long hard look at the finished product, and quickly renamed it Alan Smithee's 'The Village'.

The film is set in an unspecified time and place, and features a small community dressed in bizarre nineteenth century garb. Their 'village' is enclosed by woods, and villagers are forbidden enter the woods due to some peculiar creatures in distinctly unscary red costumes referred to only as 'those we do not speak of' (thus ensuring that the most frequently recurring line in the entire movie ends with a preposition). Everyone speaks in ridiculously verbose language that renders even the most basic sentence as portentous nonsense (they cannot say 'what do you mean', only 'what is your meaning?', not 'I like dancing', but 'I do find dancing very agreeable').
The characters are distinctly one dimensional, the atmosphere entirely forced (with blandly dim photography and a predictable score) and the performances uniformly stilted. Joaquin Phoenix spends the first half of the picture with a persistent expression of pained consternation, as if he is trying to hold in a particularly troublesome bowel movement, and spends the second half of the movie in his death-bed. William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver are uncomfortably serious, newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director Ron) is unbearably earnest and small parts for the likes of Michael Pitt are particularly thankless. Worst of all is Adrien Brody's bumbling village idiot - a character almost offensive in its lack of originality and inspiration - and a terrible move for an actor of Brody's quality (although it will no doubt only enhance his bank balance).

I have a taste for the supernatural - indeed, I've even spent quite a lot of my time researching it (or at least the preternatural - but that semantic distinction is better saved for another time and place), but this really is guff. It lacks any real suspense or dramatic purpose, and any interest in its supposedly supernatural elements is surely undermined by a string of increasingly ridiculous plot twists. Shyamalan has made this his trademark (along with his own wryly amusing cameo appearances), but the formula has arguably begun to wear thin even by 'Unbreakable'. The ending to that film was easily intuited, given that it was actually the only possible conclusion to a somewhat plodding film, weighed down by inevitability. The denouement to 'The Village' is completely ridiculous - and only serves to leave more questions posed than answered. Anyone who discovers this supposed 'twist' before seeing the film will no doubt be completely baffled, and wisely elect not to part with their hard earned cash to view the picture.

'The Village' is pretentious, self-indulgent, tedious and artless. Anything this silly should at least be entertaining - but this is so completely boring. It is the worst film I've seen so far this year.

Friday, August 20, 2004

A Game of Two Halves - Badly Drawn Boy at the Royal Festival Hall

First of all I'm fucking pissed off. I have a spare ticket for this show that nobody seems to want - £21 down the toilet. I try and sell it to a tout, and am offered £3 for it. That's a total insult. For a start, a Badders gig is worth a hell of a lot more than that. Secondly, £3 won't even buy me a decent pint in a plush South Bank arts venue like this. Ho hum.

So I sit on my own, and read Richard Ford's wonderful novel The Sportswriter to pass the time whilst waiting for the support act. The support act shuffle on surreptitiously, looking somewhat uncomfortable, afraid that the venue might swallow them off. I think they are called Dukes but I didn't hear the announcement properly, and I have absolutely no prior knowledge of their music. They are surprisingly marvelous - crafting a rich and mysterious sound that is enthralling and entrancing. They benefit greatly from the presence of a female singing drummer, who is blessed with a voice with a distinctive timbre, full of alure and mystery. On stage, their posture was somewhat rigid, and as performers they remained steadfastly unengaging - but this may well have been the most appropriate approach for their languid, hypnotic sound.

After a remarkably efficient twenty minute turnaround, Badders shuffled towards centre stage and put both his fists in the air. Given the rather rabid critical reaction to new album One Plus One is One - he needs this to be a good performance. The gigs that followed 'Have You Fed The Fish' were fantastic fun, and genuine restorers of faith. He played two lengthy sets, with a perfectly judged balance of good tunes and arsing about. To be honest, I've never understood why critics have always reacted badly to these lengthy shows - with fine songwriting and genius comedy combined, Badders usually offers us more than value for money. Tonight proved to be a slightly more complex affair.

The first half of the show consists of the new album in sequence. He announces that they had played it all the previous night, and that he had disliked the experience so much that he vowed to do it all again, but with more success. I still find this a deeply unsatisfactory way to deliver a live performance, especially for an artist like Damon Gough, whose stage character is innately shambolic and unpredictable. Knowing exactly what is coming next is maddening, especially when most of the songs are delivered faithfully to the original script, even the endearingly brief instrumental interludes.

To be fair, it's immediately clear that this is one of the best live bands that Gough has assembled. Many critics reacted rabidly against the excessive use of flute in the new material, claiming it resembled Jethro Tull. What an unimaginative critical response! To my mind, the flute mostly adds extra colour (definitely a benefit in the new album's more drab moments) and represents a completely logical step from a songwriter clearly preoccupied as much with arrangement and mood as melody. Even more welcome is a deliciously lively and inventive rhythm section that helps to energise the material. This is particularly true in the case of 'Four Leaf Clover' - a song that sounds disappointingly flat in its recorded version - but is extended with enthusiastic abandon this evening.

Gough clearly cares deeply about this album. It is characteristically whimsical, with strong links to his family, his life in Manchester and his personal heritage. At times, it is genuinely touching - but occasionally it is more than a little bit icky ('Year of the Rat' sounds much less grating without the child's choir, but it remains steadfastly lightweight - one of his least engaging songs). Yet in spite of this personal emotional investment (or perhaps because of it), this performance is weighed down by the burden of seriousness. There are brief moments of fun - such as when the audience make him collapse with laughter over the into to 'Another Devil Dies' and he confesses he did exactly the same the previous night. Most of the set feels rigid and restrictive - a deliberate statement rather than a natural act. Whilst 'One Plus One is One' is a typically endearing collection of songs - it doesn't have the stature or coherence of a 'Forever Changes' or a 'Pet Sounds', and cannot withstand the full sequential treatment, especially in the somewhat cramped and stuffy atmosphere of the Festival Hall. The audience seem somewhat nonplussed and, really, who can blame them?

Of course, he redeems himself valiantly in the second half. He plays a ramshackle acoustic version of 'Once Around The Block' with the now traditional additional narrative at the beginning. The string section bring extra warmth to a sincere and affecting rendition of 'The Shining'. He plays B-Sides, and a couple of tracks from the early EPs with I must confess to never having heard before. There are also a generous number of tracks from 'Have You Fed The Fish', an album he defends by stating: 'It's not my LA album for fuck's sake - it's my being in LA wondering how everyone is back home album!'. There are positively groovy performances of 'Disillusion' and 'Silent Sigh' that at last get people shifting in their seats. And he pays homage to Bruce Springsteen by singing a gospel style monologue over the final track. 'Just bring it down a little', he instructs the band, before singing 'I never wanted to be here, I never wanted to be on the stage!'. Someone in the crowd shouts 'bollocks!' to which, Badders, always the master of the anti-heckle, retorts (in song) 'Don't say bollocks, I only speak the truth! I always wanted to be behind the scenes....but I ended up one of the most influential rock and roll stars of all time!'. It's a moment filled with good humour and fun, and a pleasing end to what, by its conclusion, has been an excellent evening.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Smile? I Was Positively Beaming!

Financial struggles have meant that I've missed Brian Wilson on all the occasions he's been to London's Festival Hall....until now that is. Last Friday, I bit the bullet and bought a ticket just a couple of hours before the show was due to start. Perhaps familiarity breeds apathy (this is now Wilson's third stint of shows in London) but I was still surprised to find lots of empty seats. I'd heard plenty of reports of these shows being momentous, joyous, perhaps even quasi-religious experiences, but I remained sceptical given Wilson's apparent frailty. I have also questioned the merits of playing special sets devoted to one particular album, especially when your band is committed to replicating the original material note for note in a way that seems excessively precise and slavishly pointless. I still question this way of constructing a live set - but whilst, for me and many others, 'Pet Sounds' remains sacred as the greatest example of how pop composition and studio technique can combine to create pure magic, 'Smile' has more mystique. Wilson's breakdown left it unfinished back in '67, but both in its raw form and its new seamless completion as a 'rock opera in three movements' (no - don't make it sound like Tommy - an infinitely inferior and smug piece of petty posturing if ever there was one), it is both flawed and deeply fascinating.

Wilson keeps us waiting for what many still believe is his masterpiece. To my mind, the electric and acoustic sets that precede it are just as significant. The lights dim, and from behind a curtain we can hear a lot of shuffling around and murmuring. Then an anouncement: - ' We are The Pilgrims!' and a bizarre toast (Brian: 'Will we have a good show?', Jeff Foskett: 'Yes we'll have a good show!). The whole band (and it is sizeable, at least thirteen musicians by my rather hasty count) are gathered together on one side of the stage, clustered more like an extended family than a musical collective. The opening few songs have the intimate, informal feel of a campfire singalong. They start with 'In My Room', and the exquisitely arranged harmonies are immediately striking. It is a wonderful joy to hear this kind of close singing in a live setting - it is all too rare in popular music today. Many more Beach Boys classics follow, including a superbly jaunty take on 'Wendy', a great song that I had not expected to hear.

The electric set begins with a robust, enthralling version of 'This Whole World', one of Wilson's best songs and one of the highlights of the somewhat neglected 'Sunflower' album. The band sounded metronomically tight, but still seems to have an exhuberance and spirit necessary for a convincing live performance. Some of these songs, touching and whimsical in their original forms, become genuinely moving this evening - 'Add Some Music To Your Day' and 'California Girls' are particularly enchanting. A lot of credit must go to Jeff Foskett, an arranger and bandleader of remarkable skill, for he has developed the sound of this band so it is both reverent to the distinctive Beach Boys sound, but also alert and alive. There are an obligatory handful of songs from new album 'Gettin' In Out of My Head', which has largely received short thrift from the music press, but I felt the songs stood up remarkably well in such timeless and delectable company. They are warmly nostalgic and delicately involving. Brian dedicates 'Soul Searching' (a song also given to Solomon Burke for his recent album) to his brother Carl, and it sounds impassioned and heartfelt. It is followed by a genuine surprise, a sublime rendition of Dennis Wilson's 'Forever', a song that is simple in harmony, but devastatingly affecting in its result. Songs from 'Pet Sounds' are thin on the ground this evening, with merely a slightly botched version of 'God Only Knows' and 'Sloop John B'. The former, save for Brian's faltering vocal, is faithfully rendered from the original template, the latter has more energy. 'God Only Knows' is such an expertly orchestrated, brilliantly composed masterpiece of a pop song that any performance could not really do it justice - and tonight's was probably far from the best.

There is no doubt that Wilson's voice has declined. People in the audience mutter that it was much better last year, but I remember seeing a performance on TV and noticing similar failings then. He struggles to hit high notes, and sometimes gives up altogether, allowing his dependable and impressive band to carry the vocals themselves. What is most fascinating is how he deals with these limitations in the way that he cuts short phrasings and forces out lines. His style is less sugary now, and more aggressive, and it alters the way I hear some of these songs. 'God Only Knows' for example sounds almost possessive this evening. Watching his constant grin and extravagant hand gestures (he sits at a keyboard, but hardly ever plays it) means there is never any shortage of visual engagement on stage - and his genuine commitment to the material and interaction with both band and audience more than compensate for his vocal flaws. Anyway, the voice is at least clear and comprehensible, unlike Bob Dylan's. After a rousing, elongated 'Sail on Sailor', the band disappear for a well-earned break.

Then comes 'Smile' in its entirety. At the risk of sounding somewhat sacrilegious, I must confess to being undecided on the merits of 'Smile'. Bits of it are completely astounding, and it is all technically dazzling. It is undoubtedly one of the bravest attempts at extended composition in the rock canon, and with its use of vegetables and occasionally inane lyrics, it also has the benefit of a self-mocking sense of humour. However, it is also remarkably bitty, and the moments that work best are the by now familiar songs - 'Heroes and Villains', 'Surf's Up', 'Cabinessence' and a triumphant finale of 'Good Vibrations' which gets the whole crowd on their feet. It feels like an outpouring of consistently interesting but loosely connected ideas. The arrangement is deftly handled and the performance remarkably controlled, but I didn't connect emotionally with this music in quite the same way as with the classics in the earlier set. I'm amazed the any band could reproduce this complex work on stage. There was much instrument swapping and athletic movement across the stage. Nevertheless, it may not quite be the masterpiece I had convinced myself it was. It is a deeply impressive composition, but less convincing as a mode of communication.

Still, it's not over yet. Brian Wilson has to be assisted back on stage (he suffers from chronic back pain at the moment), but he still delivers a monumental encore that provides a peerless lesson in how to entertain an audience. Jeff Foskett first introduces the entire band on an individual basis (it seems to take forever), but we then get a continous blast through a number of surf classics, including 'Surfin' USA', 'Barbara Ann', 'I Get Around', 'Fun Fun Fun' and a glorious 'Help Me Rhonda'. By this stage everyone is dancing, and the sense of unrestrained joy is palpable. After two-and-a-half hours of carefully prepared, brilliantly performed pop music, I felt emotionally and physically exhausted. I've been critical in the right places in this review - but I would still place this gig firmly in the top five best gigs I've ever seen. It felt like a shared experience - which means much more than any hope of musical or technical perfection. The innocence and naivety of Wilson's songs perhaps demand a human, flawed performance, and whilst this could have been an evening of grand, perhaps even pompous seriousness - in the end, it felt like a celebration of one of rock's greatest living talents. There is a second encore of the stripped down piano ballad 'Love and Mercy', easily the most candidly idealistic and nakedly naive song in the Wilson catalogue. Had it come from, Damien Dempsey, it would sound dreadful. It is testament to Wilson's considerable charm and honesty that it sounds unfashionable, refreshing, touching - a Hollywood ending for an evening of sweet harmony.