REVIEW: The Magic Band at The Thekla Bristol, 4th December 2011

Despite a fairly steep ticket price, a reasonable crowd has come out to the Thekla to see the MagicBand on a Sunday night; one assumes nobody here cares much who is going to make The X Factor final. For some reason it’s almost an entirely male audience but you can sort out what that means regarding the psychological differences between the sexes yourself. After all, this isn’t an AC/DC gig. Like their audience, the Magic Band are old enough to know that it’s a school night and hit the stage at half eight before delivering  just over two hours of what the Magic Band, and only the Magic Band, do. If you’re wondering what exactly that is then you need to know this is the once more reformed backing band of Don Van Vliet, or as you probably better know him, Captain Beefheart. The Magic Band initially reformed sans the then retired Captain back in 2002 and have toured on and off since, disintegrating and reforming along the way. Don Van Vliet’s health problems meant that we were never likely to see him fronting the band ever again but his death last year has made sure that this is the closest you will come to seeing the band in its sixties and seventies glory. And there really is no-one like the Magic Band. Beefheart’s sound was hard to describe; strange avant-garde blues with little in the way references for the casual listener. But when you get it, it’s a thing of beauty; like nothing else you’ve ever heard. Tonight the band are Feelers Rebo and Eric Klerks on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and John “Drumbo” French on vocals, harmonica and drums. Sadly Drumbo never actually tells us the name of whoever it was on drums while he is doing the fronting but we’ll have to forgive him. You see, without the Captain, it is easy to imagine that the whole thing wouldn’t work; the presence of that mighty bellowing voice and his earthy charisma were an essential focus to the otherwise inapproachable sound. But Drumbo has been a revelation since the Magic Band’s reformation and tonight is no exception. He hollers and fills the stage like the Captain used to, while the band tear through what is the nearest to a greatest hits package as they’ll ever get. LowYo Yo Stuff, Alice in Blunderland, Floppy Boot Stomp, Moonlight on Vermont all build to the climax of the jitter-inducing Electricity and big guitar sound of Big-Eyed Beansfrom Venus; all your favourites (assuming this is your kind of thing) are here. The sound is aggressive and mercurial and if Drumbo comes across like a demented preacher then he is preaching to the converted anyway. There is no true encore despite the audience reaction; just Drumbo “performing” one of the Captain’s poems in his inevitable style. They could have continued but we’re sent home at a reasonable hour to rise early to face a world that is all the richer for having the Magic Band in it. Long may they continue.

REVIEW: Minima performing with "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror" (1922) at St Mary Redcliffe Church Bristol 3rd December 2011

St Mary Redcliffe Church on a cold December night. The pews are uncomfortable and, so the chief priest warns us, medieval churches weren’t big on toilet facilities. Nevertheless, this is the chosen venue for The Magic Lantern FilmClub’s latest outing and the gothic surroundings are more than appropriate. The Magic Lantern have been organising classic film screenings in unusual locations around Bristol for some years now and doing sterling work raising money for AWAMU, a charity helping children affected by HIV in Uganda. But tonight is a bit different. Tonight’s film is everybody’s favourite piece of silent and scary German expressionism: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922). But although many here tonight will have seen Nosferatu before, the fact that the music will be provided by a live band makes this a new experience for most. Bristol and London based Minima are a four-piece (guitar/bass/cello/drums) that have been performing live soundtracks to silent and avant-garde films since 2006 and the oft-screened Nosferatu has become something of a signature piece.

Dressed suitably in black, Minima are seated behind and below the suspended screen, their heads obscured, as the sell-out audience politely stakes claim on the best pews. Slowly, over the course of ten minutes or so, an almost subliminal murmur of sound rises from the band until an audience member shouts, “hey, they’re making spooky noises” and we all realise that the show has begun. Then the lights dim and as Nosferatu’s shaky opening credits roll, the haunting cello theme draws us into its nightmarish world.

It must be said that Minima’s interpretation of Nosferatu is not for the purists. Their sound is reminiscent of a less apocalyptic Godspeed You! Black Emperor and so tonight’s performance bears no similarity to the original 1922 score. But that, it would seem, is the point. With the original music unavailable until recent years, many composers have attempted to come up with definitive new interpretations resulting in Nosferatu becoming a living thing; a sort of dark Fantasia, if you will. Inevitably, these new themes have tended to become dated and, when one considers that Nosferatu’s almost unique quality is its ability to put the willies up an audience today as well as it did ninety years ago, dated accompaniment will not do. Minima’s modern yet organic sound embraces the passage of time since the film’s original release yet is completely contemporary, resulting in a fresh experience that still manages feel appropriate to a piece of cinema’s gothic past. Injections of musical humour may also not be to everyone’s taste but the overall effect is that of moodiness with all the added edge of a modern live band. Over an hour and a half Minima move around a few central motifs through haunting space punctuated by surprisingly upbeat rhythms. As Count Orlok is destroyed by the rays of a new dawn, the music drops back to the solo cello theme we started with. After this restrained and eloquent finale we finally see Minima’s faces as they come to take their bows. Unsurprisingly, despite the enthusiastic audience response, there are no encores, but then it seems there is simply nothing to add.

For more information on The Magic Lantern Film Club, go to magiclanternfilmclub.com.