There are always good times at Tago Mago; sometimes the evening is genuinely memorable. And other times it’s downright shambolic. Spencer P Jones has been present at a lot of those events; you never quite know exactly what you’re going to get with Spencer, but it’s always worth witnessing.
Tonight’s set rambled across Jones’ many moods and talents. Perhaps channelling Bob Dylan’s contrarian ethos, nothing was quite what it seemed. When She Finds Out delved into avant-garde territory: “Spencer’s gone all Philip Glass on us,” a friend remarked, as we tried to focus on Jones’ mercurial journey. “It’s like watching Tim Buckley at a bowling alley”.
I’m Waiting for the Man, ironically but astutely, was played through a Heroin lens. She Walks Between the Rain Drops might have been notionally linear, but it’s still the best love song around.
A solicited encore becomes an extended stay – but no-one is complaining. A cover of the Beasts of Bourbon’s Hard For You strips away the obnoxious misogyny of the original to reveal a heart-felt lament that perhaps even the song’s original indulgence might be mature enough to concede.
And then it was time for Seedy Jeezus. There’s a host of potent local bands tearing new rock’n’roll orifices where the average musical surgeon fears to explore – King of the North, Drunk Mums, Money for Rope and a shitload more. Seedy Jeezus should be on that list – nee, on the top of that list. The tempo swings from hard and heavy to classical and reflective to weird and psychedelic. Lex shreds his guitar likes it’s 1968 at the Grande Ballroom (the band’s latest composition is the best song the MC5 never wrote); Black Sabbath stadium rock is pummelled through a psychedelic-stoner rock mill. There’s even a drum solo – a drum solo! – and it’s 1975 again, the apex of rock’n’roll and triumphalism.
The night always promised to end with an unforgettable coda, and it does: Spencer returns to the stage and joins Seedy Jeezus for a rendition of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Cortez the Killer. Like Young’s original track – and his contemporary meandering prose – the song rambles across psychedelic country rock terrain, sometimes self-indulgent and always mesmerising. Fourteen minutes later, and it’s over and there is an atmosphere of absolute contentment. The perfect end to another great rock’n’roll night.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Loved: Cortez the Killer, obviously.
Hated: Nothing, really.
Drank: Cooper’s Pale chased with 3 Ravens.
