@ Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on Tue 3 May 2016
It takes some chutzpah. No support act, no introduction, opening with a funereal Peggy Lee cover (Johnny Guitar), two hours with barely a word spoken to the audience, including a new album start to finish in its entirety, with accompanying self-made films. Sunday Night at the Palladium it isn’t. But over nearly 25 years, Tindersticks have earned the reverence in which they are held. There’ll be few here tonight who aren’t utterly devoted, and willing to indulge them every arthouse move they make.
In a sense, Tindersticks have always been the age they are now. While their contemporaries were mincing round their Country Houses Benny Hill style, or sitting arrogantly atop their Wonderwalls, Stuart A. Staples and band were grumpily diarising the trials of touring or the tragic young death of a disabled sister – a wizened, whisky-sodden hotel bar band, wrecked and world-weary by the age of 25.
So there’s no sense in which tonight’s gig involves any retreading of collective youth. The band are still a thriving creative force, plotting an increasingly personal course far from a mainstream they were never part of. The oldest song here is My Oblivion from 2003’s Waiting For The Moon, and “greatest hits” are notable by their absence.
The centrepiece of the show is the “cine-concert” of the new album, The Waiting Room. After a brief opening set as a warm-up, they re-emerge to live soundtrack a series of film shorts based on the new material. Song and short have been well-paired. Thus the urgent, trancey bassline of Were We Once Lovers? accompanies a sped-up POV drive through a city, the music-box tinkliness of Hey Lucinda goes with slo-mo shots of fading seaside amusement arcades, and the ominous tones of We Are Dreamers with footage of an inhumanly sized industrial digger carving its way through a muddy wasteland.
Musically, there are few remnants now of the chamber pop that characterised their earlier work. In recent times, Tindersticks’ best material appears to be the product of extended jams, and tonight further confirms this. The aforementioned Were We Once Lovers? and the dark, jazzy Help Yourself are captivating. The more conventionally structured songs feel weaker.
Sound is studio perfect – not always the case with rock gigs at the Usher Hall – allowing each instrument its rightful place in the mix. The textures of Earl Harvin’s drumming are palpable, and Neil Fraser’s guitar rings clear and true throughout. In fact, the instrumental balance is more jazz than rock – no dominating force of a lead guitar, bass and drums equally valuable. It’s a spread of musicianship matched by few in rock – the Bad Seeds, Bob Dylan’s touring band among them.
Given what happens in the Usher Hall each August, it’s tempting to wonder whether Fergus Linehan is in tonight, taking notes. Of contemporary bands who could bridge the gap into the Edinburgh International Festival, there’d be few finer than Tindersticks. The half empty Grand Circle might demonstrate the limit of their appeal, but they remain artistically compelling.