{"id":10011,"date":"2019-12-21T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T05:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=10011"},"modified":"2019-12-19T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T12:34:08","slug":"mark-lanegan-band-the-membranes-bristol-swx-11th-december-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=10011","title":{"rendered":"Mark Lanegan Band\/The Membranes \u2013 Bristol, SWX \u2013 11th December 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s time for my final gig of the year (well reviewing wise anyway) and I can think of no better way of wrapping up an excellent year of live music than by spending a few hours in the company of one of the acts behind one of the best albums of 2019, The Mark Lanegan Band<\/p>\n

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I also have something of a confession to make too as whilst I\u2019ve been an admirer of John Robb\u2019s work for quite some time now (via both his writing and his time spent fronting the awesome Goldblade) I\u2019ve never actually seen his first band The Membranes live before, in fact I\u2019ve only ever heard the odd track by them before tonight. As a result, and true to RPM form, brother Brooks and I are in Bristol\u2019s SWX venue very early doors to make amends for this fact, and as it transpires boy are we glad we did.<\/p>\n

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For those of you like me who are perhaps unaware of their music, The Membranes kick out a kind of gothic post punk jam that only has Robb\u2019s trademark creepers and haircut in common with those turbo-charged garage punk rockers Goldblade. Oh and \u2018blade guitarist Peter Byrchmore whose been in the band since they reformed back in 2009, who mangles the six strings along with 80s Membranes guitarist Nick Brown, and creating a kind of Reeves Gabrels meets Robert Fripp six string sonic assault between them. Goldblade drummer Rob Haynes has along been along for the ride since the reunion but he\u2019s missing from these European dates with Mike Simii providing the backbeat over some tripped-out samples and keyboards from the enigmatic Amelia Chain who also chips in with some kooky Ofra Haza style backing vocal too.<\/p>\n

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Having been on the road with Lanegan since early November The Membranes really have got their allotted 30 minute stage time down to a fine art, slotting in tracks from their recent \u2018What Nature Gives\u200b.\u200b.\u200b.\u200bNature Takes Away\u2019 album like the throbbing \u2018Black Is The Colour\u2019 alongside the likes of \u2018The Graveyard\u2019 and \u2018Dark Energy\u2019 from their 2016 album \u2018Dark Matter\/Dark Energy\u2019 with the always moving frontman (and here bassist) Robb cutting a very different figure here from the one he commands in Goldblade. At times it\u2019s almost like someone has taken Shaun Ryder and somehow channelled the spirit of Phil Lynott through him (albeit correcting Lynott\u2019s above the belt bass height failure). It really shouldn\u2019t work, but by God it does, and as soon as the band wrap up their six song set with \u2018Myths and Legends\u2019 I find myself immediately rushing to the front of the stage to buy a copy of the band\u2019s new album. (Robb having previously voiced on social media his uneasiness with the percentage certain venues were demanding for the band to sell their merch choosing to sell his wares from the photo pit.) So, I think we can say that\u2019s mission accomplished as I certainly wasn\u2019t alone in the rush for the new album.<\/p>\n

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If Alanis Morissette is looking to update her examples of irony for her 2020 tour then she need look no further than the fact that tonight RPM has a photo pass for this show, and for anyone who knows Mark Lanegan shows you\u2019ll already get where I\u2019m coming from, as its near impossible to take any decent photos, other than silhouettes, due to his penchant for blue and red backlighting, so as a result instead of making his way to the photo pit as Lanegan and band amble onto the stage just before 9pm Grandmaster Flash (aka Nev Brooks) instead steps into the mosh pit alongside me and gets ready to let the whole experience melt his brain as we have done on so many previous occasions in the company of Lanegan and Co.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tonight though turns out to be unlike any other Mark Lanegan Band show we\u2019ve ever attended, as by the time we reach \u2018Emperor\u2019 towards the end of tonight\u2019s ninety minute main set people really have started something resembling a mosh pit, and earlier during \u2018Penthouse High\u2019 you better believe me when I say we were just a strobe light and a few glow sticks away from this being a regular club night at SWX.<\/p>\n

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This is the sound of Mark Lanegan Band in 2019 though folks, and with \u2018Somebody\u2019s Knocking\u2019 featuring high in my RPM Albums of the Year list I really wouldn\u2019t want it any other way. In the past when I\u2019ve lost my cool with people around talking through the more melancholic moments of Lanegan\u2019s shows tonight the chances of that happening are reduced to just one or two songs (with \u2018One Hundred Days\u2019 also getting one of the loudest shouts of the night and thankfully absolute silence around me) and everywhere else it\u2019s very much the electro gothic sound that dominates his latest album that drives proceedings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lanegan himself seems to be loving every minute of it too, taking the time to address the audience after just one song and that banter (albeit brief) continuing pretty much for the rest of the night. Me, I\u2019m totally lost in the moment, the sound enrapturing me and making me feel that there really is a force for good in the world after all. Plus when older songs like \u2018Hit The City\u2019 and \u2018The Gravediggers Song\u2019 pop up alongside the (I think) nine songs aired from \u2018Somebody\u2019s Knocking\u2019 it all kind of falls into place as the true band sound & vision Lanegan has been working on for many a year now. There are times tonight where you could strip away the rock schtick and I could just as easily be watching Jeffrey Lee Pierce as I could Astrud Gilberto, the vocal key changes are at times totally sublime, and if you don\u2019t see this then please just take one listen to \u2018Dark Disco Jag\u2019 live and tell me I\u2019m wrong.\u00a0 This track alone conjures up images of what Kraftwerk might sound like jamming Burt Bacharach, and is truly inspirational.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Closing the main set out with the mandatory \u2018Death Trip To Tulsa\u2019 before returning for a double whammy encore of\u00a0 \u2018Harbourview Hospital\u2019 and (the \u2018Thousand Miles Of Midnight\u2019 version of) \u2018The Killing Season\u2019 Lanegan is soon out front on his merch table signing things for his faithful with no hint of paid meet and greet bollocks anywhere to be seen, and that right there is what makes this guy (as well as his music) so God damned punk rock. This is a singer who not only turned his back on an easy pay cheque with QOTSA but continues to stick his middle finger up to anything that is considered conventional in the rock n roll world, and I simply can\u2019t help but love him for it.<\/p>\n

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If we hadn\u2019t already submitted our gigs of the year list to RPM HQ tonight would have cruised into the top three with some ease, I just wish this every night could be like this, albeit maybe a little more well lit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

See you down the front in 2020!!!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Author: Johnny Hayward<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for my final gig of the year (well reviewing wise anyway) and I can think of no better way of wrapping up an excellent year of live music than by spending a few hours in the company of one of the acts behind one of the best albums of 2019, The Mark Lanegan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[4207,2247],"class_list":["post-10011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-review","tag-mark-lanagan-band","tag-membranes","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10011"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10023,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10011\/revisions\/10023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}