But I Was There: The Long Blondes @ the Echo, 6/5/08

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The Long Blondes, "The Couples" - By all rights, this should have been the most soul-crushingly depressing show in history. Despite my years of unyieldingly vehement advocacy, the Long Blondes have yet to secure the kind of Stateside profile necessary to warrant a headlining gig at the Troubadour; Indie 103 couldn't even be bothered to show up and park their damn van outside, meaning the Long Blondes have less pull in Los Angeles than the motherfucking Ting Tings. Consequently, the Troubadour was dismally empty - I mean, %60-capacity empty, nobody-in-the-VIP-section empty, easily-find-a-new-spot-if-you-hate-your-neighbors empty. There might have even been more people present for show-opening douchebag-ensemble Castledoor, which is a real shame on account of fuck those guys.

The only thing keeping the show from being an outright disaster, as it turned out, was Kate Jackson's absolute and unchecked delight at playing the Troubadour, and it turned out to be way more than enough, too. It could have been an act, of course; Jackson's blindsiding sexiness (whoever had "158 words in" in the pool, go pick up your check) had the crowd making asses of themselves trying to get her attention from more or less the instant she took the stage, and for once in my bitter, hateful little life even I can't bring myself to make fun of them. (well, except for the guy who yelled out "SHEFFIELD!" - seriously, why do people do this? should Kate Jackson come to your place of employment and start blurting out "THOUSAND OAKS!"? actually, that would be pretty awesome. SHEFFIELD!) Never in my life have I seen a performer do such an effective job of making every girlfriend in the room get hell of uncomfortable simultaneously; I saw like five girls grabbing their guys for dear life within the first three songs, the unspoken message being I am going to cut your nuts off if you call me Kate tonight.

But to be honest, I'm inclined to give Jackson the benefit of the doubt, if only because of how often she kept breaking her own character as the most circuit-fryingly hot indie girl in the universe to completely and totally geek out over her surroundings. In addition to a half-dozen references to the venue during the show, when the band were dragged back out onstage for an encore (presumably the delay was due to Dorian Cox giving the sound guy several dozen strategically-placed cuts - the sound was all over the place during the show, particularly during "Century" where the climactic synth freakout was barely even audible), she shyly told the audience about how she'd been dreaming of playing the Troubadour since she was thirteen, which was awesome. It would certainly explain the stupefying effort she put into singing the everliving hell out of her band's songs, too. You can always tell when someone's really enjoying singing what they're singing - no flubbed notes, no overextensions, inability to keep still while doing it, etc. Well, Jackson was all that and more for an hour straight last night; her only miscue was accidentally going back into the chorus of "Guilt Has Nothing To Do With It" once too many times (a mistake for which she immediately apologized to every member in the band one-by-one - AWWWWWW), and you'll have to forgive me if I have a hard time seeing her fervor to keep singing as anything other than supportive of her enthusiasm.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that her performance of the songs off the new album were remarkable enough to insist upon another shot for the Long Blondes' second album, a record to which I've been despairingly indifferent until hearing Jackson sing some of its songs last night. I have no idea how my favorite band + the coolest producer on the planet + a track record of adjective-defyingly awesome b-sides =/= awesomeness, but that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes; hell, I'm not crazy about Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia either. Besides, after last night's show I've got no problem placing the blame squarely on Erol Alkan's shoulders; the band absolutely demolished any complaints about the songs not sounding lively or rocking enough for my liking without the benefit of any complex double- or triple-tracking arrangements or manicured synth polish. Instead, what you got was Kate Jackson absolutely belting out everything, and even having seen them last year I still wasn't ready for just how completely Jackson throws herself into the new stuff. My favorite was, as you may have guessed, "The Couples", which sounds awesome live - it's just as wiry and slinky and upbeat as their old stuff, with plenty of opportunities for Jackson to sultrify things as she sees fit - but could have just as easily gone to their set-opening "Here Comes The Serious Bit" or big? single? "Guilt", all of which she just absolutely inhabited like she was afraid of the Sandman Hook.

I realize, of course, that I've fallen into the same trap as every other heterosexual music-show-review-writing-dude on the planet and blathered on about Jackson at the expense of everyone else in the band; I'd even avow that that's an even greater shame than usual given the show that they each put on - Cox snapping at the sound techs one moment and sullenly shaking a banana-shaped maraca on "Too Clever By Half" the next, Emma Chaplin trying to keep him from running up into the booth and choking a bitch, the comedic stylings of Screech Louder (ugh), Reenie Hollis playing the bass with Entwhistlian stoicism... these are all good things, the kind of things that make a good show great, and certainly not the kind of things which any critic worth his salt would bury under an avalanche of starstruck gushing for their more-famous bandmate. I have no defense apart from Jackson's singular ebullience. She was the one who couldn't shut up about the Troubadour, home of the $8.50 seven-and-sevens. She was the one who insisted on engaging the crowd at every turn, even going so far as to invite the audience to stick around for a drink. She was the one telling stories about wanting to sing at the Troubadour since the days when she wanted to fuck Duff McKagan. I mean, there's absolutely such a thing as fawning adulation in this world, but sometimes, fair's just fair. (Click here to buy "Couples" from Amazon.com)

(And an extra-special thanks to whoever's decision it was to play Evie Sands' "A Woman's Work Is Never Done" between the two bands' sets - you blew my fucking MIIIIIIIIIIIND.)

ELSEWHERE
- So in an effort to keep me posting more regularly, I've decided to abandon the old several-mp3s-in-one-post trope; this way (in theory) I don't have to sit around waiting for enough content to justify a post and can just throw shit up as it appears to me. Will this strategy prove successful? WHO KNOWS~