Camber Sands, All Tomorrow's Parties 23 April 2005
Suicide were one of the acts that I'd really
been looking forward to at this year's All Tomorrow's Parties
festival in Camber Sands, East Sussex. And sadly, at least for me,
this was not to be the ephiphanic experience I always hoped seeing
such a historically important act in the genesis of modern electronic
music would be. I'm not sure what the reason was - perhaps the feeling
that Martin Rev and Alan Vega were kind of 'going
through the motions', or perhaps it was the fact that prior to them
I'd seen PJ Harvey and Red Hot Chili Peppers' guitarist John Frusciante
in very laidback, stripped-down solo performances with only guitars
- in contrast, Suicide's electronic compositions were a little bit
too complex; and this from me, ordinarily an electronic music stalwart
and a fan of the intricate and unusual.
I'd seen Rev and Vega wandering around the weird
jaded / faded seaside glamour of ATP's Pontins home the day before
whilst queueing to check in. Now that was epiphanic - to be just
a few feet away from two of my musical heroes while they shuffled
past was quite mind-blowing - but the feeling that I got when I
saw them perform was of being somewhat less than thrilled. For a
start they were at least half an hour late, and then the music appeared
to be played on a CD player, with the volume varying considerably
from track to track, and often within the same track. Then there
was the uncomfortable fact that Rev played some noises over the
top of the recording - it just happpened to be the same set of sounds
on each and every song! Cymbals, crashes, swooshes and abrasive
noises appeared with frightening predictability / regularity, and
often out of time.
Another problem was that I really didn't recognise
many of the songs, especially since they were rendered with an eighties
pop sheen - none of the grit of their original incarnations at all,
and one track even sounded very like 'Theme From S'Express' - hardly
a counter-cultural statement. The version of 'Cheree' was rendered
with a rockabilly edge, with Rev taking a stab at some live Phil
Spector-esque Wall Of Sound percussion on one bar, then missing
the beat on the second bar, finally giving up on the third.
A note on Marty Rev: if Suicide were the unlikely
progenitors to the eighties synth duos (Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys,
Erasure, Blancmange etc), then Dave Ball, Chris Lowe, Vince
Clarke and Stephen Luscombe and all the other synth-playing
halves take note - this man has a vivid stage personality and an
energy that none of these guys have ever shown. He was frantic,
like the ubiquitous mad professor, all shocked hair and whirling
arms with the largest wrap-around shades this side of an athletics
track. He really looked like Einstein composing for a Futurist symphony,
and when he stood, centre stage, with his back to the audience he
was quite a captivating performer. And on Alan Vega, who made showroom
dummy shapes with his hands and smoked between (and sometimes during)
songs - his voice has become more gravel-filled over the years,
becoming the New York post-Beat poet that he always promised to
be. I thought he'd totally lost the plot when he started imploring
to the audience that you shouldn't be selfish, that you should look
out for your relatives. 'You should think first before doin' somethin'
stupid, man,' he emphatically muttered. And, just when I thought
that the fire and rebel spirit had exited the man completely like
the smoke exhaled from his lungs, someone thew a bottle at him.
'Like that,' he drily responded; and with that, the punk in him
returned. He stepped back from the mic and calmly flipped the bird
to the audience member. However, I couldn't work out whether he
was wearing a Davey Crockett hat or a very bad wig. I hope not the
latter; it really didn't match his cyberpunk clobber and similarly-cool
shades.
I really thought they'd hit their stride with a
totally live version of the classic 'Ghost Rider', my favourite
electro-punk standard. Sadly, my joyous feeling was to be deflated
rapidly as the synth groove failed to run at the same speed as the
beat, creating a sickeningly queasy rhythm that was painful after
a short while. They followed that disappointment with a track that
I didn't recognise that reminded me chiefly of Depeche Mode's
'A Question Of Time' with its clanging industrial synth hook and
beat. There was nothing especially wrong with their more polished
songs, it just always surprises me when a band so at the very centre
of their movement become influenced by the bands that they themselves
inspired - with results arguably poorer than the newer breed. I
left after just five songs, pleased that I'd gotten to see them,
but wishing that I was a New Yorker alive in the seventies and able
to see them at their CBGBs Bowery prime.
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