The Tuesday before this gig news of the death of John Peel reached the world and everyone involved in pop music, one way or another, felt it. On the Thursday night at Bohemian Night (3Bs bar, Reading) three members of Desdemona, Rich (guitar), Sarah (vocals and guitar) and Gayle (keyboards and vocals), performed an impromptu acoustic version of their tune Waterbabies to a spell-bound audience by way of tribute.
The tune is one that John Peel played a fair few times on his show but which, for various reasons, hasn’t been in the band’s set-lists for quite a while.
When it was reprised on the Friday night at Club Velocity (Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading) with the majesty of the full band one had to wonder why it had ever been set aside. It’s a quite beautiful song, dreamy but also nightmarishly dark, with an irresistible chorus: John was absolutely right to like it. Peel never got to see the band live but he would have loved them if he had. He never got to see Sarah’s hair in real life, although he knew there was a lot of it from the CD sleeves; he never got to catch one of Zac Yeo’s peculiarly unnerving stares out into a darkened room; never got to see Rich try to convince a soundman to turn his microphone on with a series of hand gestures whilst still playing his guitar. There is something much more dangerous about them live than there ever has been on CD and it’s a shame John missed out on it. | "For the keynote of Desdemona is love: love for the songs; love for the music; for the sheer idea of songs; and for each other. " | |
Though your typical Desdemona stage may be littered with fairy lights, with flowers and frills and make-up they are not afraid of showing their teeth, providing an ragged edge and being fast and loud. Tonight they played as if John were watching them and their beautiful fraught energy carried the audience with them through laughter, through tears, through anger, through dreams and eventually, finally (much later) back down to earth. In a band where the front line is so dreadfully good-looking (Zac, Sarah and Gayle are all to die for) it could be easy to overlook the fine guitarist (Rich), but what he lacks in handsomeness he more than makes up for in attitude – and not the plastic angry attitude-manque of modern punk, but genuine conviction and involvement and love with what he’s doing. He attacks the knobs of his guitar as if they might rebel at any moment; he bounces into the air and crashes back down exactly in time each time; he grimaces; and yet his feet nudge the buttons of his pedals with care. For the keynote of Desdemona is love: love for the songs; love for the music; for the sheer idea of songs; and for each other. But this isn’t a chocolate box and this isn’t a soft centre, this is a great bear hug of a band who want to make you feel as they do: that there is hope, and that there is light and that we’re all in this, on this long journey, together.
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