Blog: Lazarus Clamp

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After a late night at work - doing WORK! - i had a short stroll across London's Strangely Quiet Fitzrovia to The Social, there to go and see Lazarus Clamp, featuring our own TIGER McClure. I was Pleasantly Surprised by how nice the venue was, as the one in Nottingham is... well, NOT one of my favourite venues, as the stage is about ten foot in the air and faces a WALL so that the sound is ROTTEN, but the London was dead nice, and the sound, as it turned out, was GRATE.

I came in, once again, just as George was finishing, then bumped into Mr Stu Baboon - INDEED it turned out there were SEVERAL Dead Nice People I Knew there, so I had a lovely time CHATTING VARIOUSLY, it was really nice!

The next band on were OK - they were just a drummer and a woman playing guitar, and they were both EXCELLENT at doing both, for the first half of the set it was really COMPELLING watching them, as they were SO good. There's a lot of LOOSE TALK about bands being "tight", as if it is an End In Itself, but when you see people playing together who really ARE incredibly tight, like they're playing as one INCREDIBLY TOGETHER MACHINE, then it is moving AND exciting, it is a GROOVE. I sometimes think this is the POINT of The World Of Music: we spend all our lives TRAPPED within the confines of our own skulls and most of what we do for fun is an attempt to get outside of our own brains and connect with other people's e.g. by LAUGHING to demonstrate we think the same thing to - hey! - falling into THE LOVE. When you see people LOCKED IN and GROOVING together then it has the same sort of function, it feels like there's TELEPATHY going on, and it's DEAD exciting.

However there wasn't that much else going on - like I say, they were FANTASTIC musicians and it all sounded very NOW and DYNAMIC, but while there were playing WELL, what they were playing wasn't anything much. Also there was no real audience connection - with a charismatic singer added on then it would have been FANTASTIC, but hey! if it was as easier to DO as that was to type then the world would be AWASH with brilliance.

Anyway, after that it was time for The Clamp, who benefited IMMENSELY from the Really Good Sound System. Hugh The Drummer wasn't there so they fell back on that traditional Rock Standby line-up of guitar, banjo, violin and cello. As you do. It was all TUNEY and DELIGHTFUL, and also RELAXED - the FACT that they've done more gigs in the past year than in the previous TEN (probably) means they seem a lot more comfortable BEING in a gig this year, and the atmosphere of CASUAL DELIGHT spread across the room. It was dead good.

And after that, and a lovely wander round the room chatting to other people, it was time to head home for LO! i still have Half A Cold. Lemsip HO!

posted 6/2/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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