Last night I made the two-hour drive from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to see Australian trio The Necks perform at the Andy Warhol Museum on their first-ever North American tour. One word: fanfreakingtastic.
Bassist Lloyd Swanton began the evening's piece with an ascending two-note motif as drummer Tony Buck dragged his sticks across the head of the snare, creating eerie creaks as if emanating from a ghostly pirate ship. Pianist Chris Abrahams joined in after a few minutes with a series of single, tentative notes, like the ping of a submarine's sonar.
Swanton expanded the motif gradually, strumming trills that swelled like waves alongside Abrahams' signature cascades of tightly-grouped arpeggios. Buck slowly added more creeks and squeals from his cymbals, also dragging a small bell across his snare. He would occasionally drag a stick across the bass drumhead, creating a low swell that match the torrent of trills coming from his bandmates.
Swanton switched to bowing his bass rapidly, adding a third note to the motif as Abrahams' waves of notes crested with growing force. Buck began ringing his bell and rolling on his cymbals, increasing in volume, then adding a thunder-like double-bass roll. Soon all three musicians were pounding away, locked in an oceanic groove that kept on growing louder and deeper.
The waves abated slowly as the trio began to bring the volume and tempo down gradually. Swanton returned to strumming and plucking his strings as Abrahams' notes trickled away, diminishing in time with the rattle that Buck was now sweeping across his floor tom in a circular motion, as if creating a whirlpool to draw in all of the swirling notes and overtones of the evening. Finally the rattle slowed to a halt as the last piano notes faded.
The piece lasted between forty-five minutes to an hour, and I was entranced the whole time. I have been listening to the Necks since 1995 and own all fourteen of their albums, so yes, I was extremely psyched for this show, well before the first note. They did not disappoint.
Check out some of the Necks' videos on YouTube. This one is a good place to start.
2 comments:
Wow! I pulled out their first release a few months back when I heard that they were one of the groups Nick Cave chose to perform at the All Tommorrow's Parties Festival last January...what a superbly subtle band! I had no idea their back catalog was so DEEP! Damn!
Plus, two of their studio releases are 2-CD sets, and one of the live releases is a 4-CD set!
I was chatting with Lloyd Swanton at the merchandise table after the show. He seemed genuinely surprised when I told him that I had all of their CDs. I wanted to buy some discs from his side band, The Catholics, but they didn't bring any with them, only Necks' discs. I can order the Catholics' stuff from the Necks' website, though.
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