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9th June 2001 — London Astoria II, Mean Fiddler, UK
Setlists
Future Song
Submarine
Flute Song
Don't Wake me up
Driving In The Sun
Reverie
Lillies
Everywhere
Adrift
Jewel
Encore I
Cloudless
The Maker of Heavenly Trousers
Lilies
Reviews
Cranes returned to the Mean Fiddler for their first London show of the year. The venue felt full (almost certainly sold out) and the audience's anticipation was palpable. Compared with previous occasions, the gig was quite muted and low-key, something that seems to match the direction that the new album has moved towards. However, the gig wasn't a disappointment. Rather the band appeared to have completed the cycle of transition from their former menacing power-blast into a new, mellow atmospherics.
Seeing the band as a four-piece again felt strange. I think I missed Matt (long gone, I know) and Mark, who was still around the last time i saw them play. This is not to diss Paul though, who is a multi-talented jack of all instruments. Ali alternated between guitar and bass, slightly nervously, it must be said, but this was more than compensated for by the new confidence in her vocals. Stating the obvious or being contentious: hearing the lyrics is a revelation-- can't understand the people who moaned about Liz Fraser moving from non-language into perceptible words, and the same goes for Alison. Jim, on the other hand, exuded confidence (one of the audience continually shouted "Noddy Holder" at him -- must be the blond hair).
And so to the songs. The same heckler shouted "In-e-scap-able" at every pause, but was confounded as they played material from every album except Wings of Joy. It was the first I'd heard of much of the new stuff, which is proving to be music that rewards repeated plays rather than making a strong first impression. The first surprise came with Pop4's "To Be", which now sounds like the piece it was always meant to be, and suggested how that album might have sounded if the band had produced it themselves, rather than Mark Freegard. The truly stand-out tracks were those from Forever (can it really be eight years?), particularly "Far away" and "Adrift", which were some compensation for not getting either "Adoration" or "Tomorrows Tears". Now I sound like a disgruntled 'original fan' from the www-board. It's just that... those early singles... the new songs are beautiful and hold their own power, but it was good to be reminded of why and how I got into the group in the first place.
The encore was a real tease. For some reason (probably the unsociable opening hours of the MF) after a haunting "Cloudless" and chilled "Heavenly Trousers" there was only time for one more -- a choice offered to the audience between "Adoration" and "Lilies". Now, I'm sure I heard louder shouting for "Adoration" but Ali turned back from consulting with the others, whispered 'OK, it's Lilies' and they launched into a blistering finale.
So the volume is still there, sometimes. Thankfully the passion, originality and creativity are there, always. Welcome to the new accoustic world of Cranes.
Review by Jon Herring.
After many years of absence on stage in Europe, the Cranes were coming back on stage in London at the meanfidler to make us discover their new album. The idea to listen to songs I really worship conjugated to their new album realease was to be a total delight. The place (meanfidler) was nice and convenient, and the attendance rather important. The cranes began with "Future songs" and a set of songs from the new album. They played further one song from "Population 4", two songs from "Loved" and then decided to linger on "Forever". The concert was very short and at my big surprise they did not even play a song from "Wings of joy". As you can easily guess, I was (and still am!) very disappointed and frustrated (especially at the end when we were given the opportunity to choose between "Adoration" or "Lilies " and that they finally played Lilies against everybody's will! ). The most interesting part was obviously all the songs from "Forever" that were quite pleasant and nice despite a conspicuous problem over "Adrift" that really missed its heavy guitar.
Dealing with the new album, as far as I'm concerned, I do not like it whether on stage or on record. I don't like it because to me, the total absence of deepness and violence is quite a prejudice. As a fan (for such a long time), I expect stuff like "Wings of joy", "Self non self", "inescapable" etc… sounds that make your guts shiver and that make you cry because you can feel them deep down. Unfortunately, the new album is far away from my expectations and one can really regret the absence of heavy guitars, real strings, pianos. I think that the majority of fans expects them to make something different than what they've been doing over the last two records, almost every fan I know agrees with it.
Anyway, it was all the same a pleasure to attend to the Cranes concert but after so many years of absence on stage, I would have appreciated a longer concert (one hour is a bit short… ): ) a lot more of the previous songs that made them worshipped by so many of us.
Good luck to The Cranes for the new album!
Bye to all
Review by Manu
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