Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks@ Metro Theatre, Sydney(22/09/09)

Thu 24th Sep, 2009 in Gig Reviews

A thirty-degree sultry spring day has been ripped asunder by a harsh southerly. Torrents of water pour forth from a violently charged sky. And even though a reasonable number of us have braved the elements to make it to Stephen Malkmus’s Metro Theatre show, do we get so much as a thank-you? We don’t.

What we get is an irritable ticking off from The Jicks bassist Joanna Bolme about how we’d better all zip-it regarding the band that starts with P and ends in – œavement. She’s probably joking, but when you’re wet, soggy and cold it doesn’t really feel like it. To add insult to the probable onset of pneumonia, Malkmus and The Jicks proceed to make a half-arsed attempt at Jenny and the Ess-Dog.

Prior to our admonishment, Sydney’s Bridezilla show good reason why Australia is going to have to cut the apron strings and allow them to seek fame and fortune overseas. The four girls dress like their mothers (or perhaps in singer Holiday Sidewinder’s case, her alcoholic, slightly sluttish aunt). The lone male, drummer Josh Bush, is decked out in his prom night best. It’s a look that perfectly reflects precocious talent colliding with youth’s bold confidence.

All five are still in their late teens/very early twenties and produce music that totally belies their tender years. The range and flair of Daisy Tulley’s violin playing must be giving Warren Ellis a few sleepless nights. Equally impressive is Millie Hall’s sax. Stripping the instrument of any niceties, she makes it bleed with Spiritualized’s deconstructed jazz squall.

A calm presence in front of her cohorts, Sidewinder makes for an incandescent frontwoman, who keeps the male contingent glued to the front of stage. There’s still work to be done here, but if the band continue on their current trajectory the next few years will surely endow them with a stellar international status.

Before departing, Sidewinder proclaims that supporting Stephen Malkmus makes this “the best day of my life”. Given Bridezilla have just returned from playing New York’s ATP festival, that’s some statement. She must be pretty deflated when Malkmus shows signs that tonight won’t register as the best day of anyone else’s life here.

After a lacklustre …Ess-Dog, the band turns out equally flat renditions of Gardenia and Baby C’Mon. Malkmus can’t seem to find his way to the microphone and lyrics either disappear or are indecipherable. Although he frees the stand of constricting tape it doesn’t address the problem – it’s not the microphone Malkmus is having trouble engaging with, it’s his own material.

Whilst Malkmus usually has a certain laissez-faire approach to live performances, his fumblings are normally tempered by jovial self-deprecation. Tonight, he just looks embarrassed and slightly irritated by the audience’s applause.

Of course, you’d have put your house on the fact that some clown was going muster up all the powers of his lone brain cell to bellow out “PAVEMENT!” If it had happened two songs earlier, there’s a good chance we’d have been on the early bus home.

Fortunately, a decent blowjob has already sorted everything out. Senator is a new track that focuses on the sexual predilections of corruptible politicians. With a nice line in heavy, grungy rock and salty references, Malkmus is rejuvenated. Although Bolme makes appeals to get the heckler ejected (again, maybe not totally in jest), it’s not enough to arrest the momentum.

From here (much to everyone’s relief) the band fully relaxes into the set. Elmo Delmo unravels nicely in a loose-limbed, shape-shifting jam, whilst Pencil Rot’s “human shit-pile” has all the requisite spit and bile. But it’s not until the encore that Malkmus finally declares that they’re “back in the grid”. After nervously waiting for the band’s return (which didn’t feel like a given), we’re rewarded with an acerbic Hopscotch Willie and a Springsteen-esque spin of the guitar (Malkmus is delighted to point out that The Boss can no longer do likewise given the emergence of some troublesome middle-aged spread).

As if to make amends for start of the show, the band closes with a full-bloodied assault on Real Emotional Trash. Malkmus breaks the song apart, nails it back together with skewed shots of sound before white noise and reverb blow it apart again. Joanna Holme and ex-Sleater Kinney drummer Janet Weiss lock rhythmic horns, adjusting pace and tone perfectly to sync with the errant route taken by Malkmus’s guitar.

As the band leave, Malkmus has the look of a man who knows he’s pulled a reasonably decent gig out of the bag with only minutes to spare. And he’s right.