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25th October 2001 — Colchester Arts Centre, UK
Setlist
Future Song
Submarine
Flute Song
To Be
Breeze
Reverie
Jewel
Driving In The Sun
Fragile
Sunrise
Shining Road
Everywhere
Far Away
Adrift
Encore
Cloudless
Angel Bell
Lilies
Adoration
Review(s)
Colchester Arts Centre is a pretty big converted church, graves around it,
Roman walls around the graves, big old tress and all that gothic stuff. It
does create a certain atmosphere, especially when it's cold.
They opened the huge doors at about 8pm. A couple of people arrived about
quarter to. Went in, everybody started sucking on the bottles of ale
(there's a bar to the right of the stage), and smoking cigs, leaning against
the columns. To the left of the stage I think they had some mixers boxes
leads and stuff like that, and then controls in the audience. All the gear
was onstage. So people sat around until about nine in dimmed lights, getting
bored. There was some music on the background - some lo-fi acoustic peaceful
boring thing. Them people were mostly 30-40 year olds, as it seemed.
At nine some guy in his twenties, dressed in a suit came onstage, sat at the
keyboards and played some stuff about love and about spending summer with
his grandmother and that kind of things for half an hour or so. No not a
rebelious kind of musician - probably with a musical education. He played a
couple of songs on acoustic guitar. Don't know what to compare his tunes with
- dont listen to that kind of music myself. I never tried to remember his
name.
By then there were only about 30 - 40 (maybe less, maybe more?, felt like
it, didnt count) people in the church, so they pulled out the chairs and
tables and sat in front of the stage, still sipping ale and smoking (how
obscene! it wasnt a jazz club after all).
Then the Cranes came out, everybody were relieved. The sound was pretty
good, not very loud (unlike the Strokes, who screwed up my hearing for like
2 days), but loud enough. The voice and the words were easy to make out,
once you get used to the voice - which came as a bit of a shock to me (that
was the first time I heard the band). No song names were announced, so I
can't really write down a set list ... just a 'thanx' and a giggle after
each song. Sometimes Ally (?) would turn her back on the audience for a few
seconds to plug the lead in her guitars, or exchange her bass for the
guitarist's (the one with long hair) guitar. Half way though, I think, she
introduced the band (she was pretty quiet, maybe people were looking
scary?). And yes there were some weird men - kept on shaking and swinging
their bodies in front of the people at the tables. You know those american
documentaries about pedaphiles - you saw them, you have some idea what
they'd dance like. They shouted cowboy-style 'wahoo' or 'yahoo' as well. I
was actually thinking about leaving because strange music with child-like
vocals and them were very annoying (no vocals are fine, need i say that, but
the combination is terrible).
The drummer I really like - did some impressive drumming in the middle of a
song, followed by a round of applause (like it happens in jazz
performances).
The Cranes played for about 1 3/4 hours, said thanx and left the stage.
Everybody knows the trick, but shouting 'more...we want more' and whistling
and tapping on the floor must be so much fun. So they came again, played a
couple of songs. Then Aly said ok...think we've got time for one more. Some
man went 'no! two!' (or something like that). And so they played two, but
only ALly and a guitarist (the one to the right of Ally, with short hair and
a telecaster).
'Clap clap clap clap whistle whistle whistle'.
And that was it.
So that's what it was like in my eyes - creepy, cold, fresh, dark, sad, nice
in a strange way.
Reviewed by RK.
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