The Lemonheads - Bass Drum of Death
It had all seemed to be going so well. The 30th Anniversary Tour intended to celebrate The Lemonheads' career-defining album 'It's A Shame About Ray', a work described as the 'all-killer, no-filler, generation-x grunge equivalent to Pet Sounds', had kicked off successfully in Ireland on September 22nd. In London, at 'The Roundhouse' eight nights later, Courtney Love had made a guest appearance, and she had duetted with Evan Dando on 'Into Your Arms'. Thirteen dates into the tour, and Dando was reported as looking 'frail', but The Lemonheads still turned in an unbelievable 37-song set at Nottingham 'Rock City' that ran for over two hours.
And then the wheels began to fall off the wagon. By the time they reached Brighton's 'Chalk' on October 10th, the cracks were apparently beginning to appear – whilst Evan and the band managed to perform 'Ray' in its entirety, the setlist had shrunk dramatically, and the show time was down to an hour and a quarter.
And that's where my story starts. My musical tastes in the 90's was more electropop than grunge, but when Evan Dando and Kirsty MacColl duetted on a cover version of Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' (that was a full two years before the BBC hi-jacked the song for a promo and allowed Bono to spunk all over it), it became one of my late wife and my favourite songs. From there, I discovered The Lemonheads. Tuesday October 11th at Epic Studios in Norwich was to be my first time seeing them live. And possibly, as it turned out, my last.
Evan Dando had already been spotted hanging out by the bar earlier in the evening, but he came onto the stage and began his acoustic solo section of the set as planned. There was some mumbled talk about Courtney Love being in the UK, and how he loved Kate Moss, but she was “probably walking on a beach in Mustique, or somewhere”, but the rest was mostly unintelligable as he struggled with his acoustic guitar and rambled through the first part of the set, oblivious even to sporadic audience calls of 'Evan, we love you!'
When the band appeared on stage for the songs from 'It's A Shame About Ray' it was clear something was wrong. The guitarist from previous nights was missing, leaving just a bass player and drummer to carry Dando's, by now, erratic playing and seriously fragile vocals. At one point we were left with just the rhythm section playing whilst Dando struggled to remember the words to his own songs, and to move his fingers into the correct places on the fretboard of his guitar. All in all, it was pretty much a car-crash of a performance, and not an easy thing to stand and watch.
At the end of 'Frank Mills', the final track from 'It's A Shame About Ray' the band walk off without even making eye contact with Dando, leaving the former rock icon alone and slightly lost. He ripped off his jacket and threw it across the stage, strapped on an electric guitar and tried to carry on, but only made it as far as one more song, When he couldn't make that work, he tried the acoustic again, but, by now he wasn't even near enough to a microphone to be heard.
In a last, desperate measure, possibly fuelled by the thought that sitting down might be a safer option than standing, he clambered behind the drumkit and attempted to conduct a sing-along version of The Eagles' love song. 'Lyin' Eyes'. Eventually, even he realised that enough ws enough, and he lumbered off stage.
It was a tragedy to watch, but I was so close to the front of the stage that I had been like a cat trapped in the car headlights. I should have run away, but I didn't. However, when I did finally turn away at the end, what had started as a room filled with over 700 expectant Lemonheads fans had dwindled to just a fraction of that number. No shouts of 'One more song' or 'We want more' - just a dejected stream of stragglers heading for the doors.
What should have been a celebration of 'It's a Shame About Ray' had turned, instead, into an evening of 'It's a shame about Evan'.
Thank goodness for Bass Drum of Death, the American garage punk trio from Oxford Mississippi who opened tonight, and turned in a wholly credible set that reminded me of early 70's bands like Atomic Rooster and Black Sabbath mixed in with a bit of glam-rock thumpiness. Even without a bass player in the line-up they really knew how to fill the space of Epic Studios with noise. Every cloud deserves a silver lining like these guys.
