Steven Long (gig: 20/10/06) I’d seen Sparklehorse three lacklustre times before Friday’s gig and was hoping it was going to be fourth time lucky; that it wasn’t says so much about the frustrating brilliance of Mark Linkous.
Of course, therein lays the fundamental problem. Sparklehorse aren’t a band. On every occasion I’ve seen them, they’re a touring unit picked by the main man before a tour. They’re not a ‘band as gang’ ready to aurally kill or be killed; they’re professional musos who are as good as the way they’re feeling on any given night.
Come on, would they really be aware that they’re playing one of the great sets of songs in the alt rock pantheon or that Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Sparklehorse’s ridiculously titled first album, was one of the best albums of the 90s and set the template for all things Americana ever since? I doubt it.
Of course it didn’t help that the Mark Linkous himself decided he didn’t like the venue from the first note struck. And maybe he had a point. A seated theatre does make things a might intense, and never let the rest of Sparklehorse create the loud/quiet dynamic for the gig to reach the heights I’d hoped for but never quite got.
This was left to Sol Seppy, who played around with the Sparklehorse template and proved to Mark Linkous that wondrously layered melodies and tunes can work in a seemingly difficult venue.
