It’s fascinating to see the rise and rise of the “full album” gig. Once upon a time it would have been virtually unthinkable to see artists spending a gig faithfully reproducing, often in the exact original running order, even their new album, let alone one from their past. I remember when first going to gigs often wishing a band would play just a bit more from a favourite old album, only to have those hopes dashed, well now it really seems you can have it all…
Is this a good thing? Well sometimes I have this nagging feeling it’s either a bit like over dosing on chocolate cake, just too much of a good thing, or maybe rock music has gone too far down the road of becoming a living museum. But when I’m not over-analysing things I just think, “Wow, is this really happening?!”
The motives behind these gigs are varied, at the cynical end some artists are giving the fans what they think they want, with possibly just a pinch of desperation and creative bankruptcy involved, elsewhere it’s more like unfinished business being taken care of.
In this case it really felt like performing these songs again was a way of trying to come to terms with the past, clearly that’s only speculation on my part, but feeling the intensity from my seat in the front row it was hard not to reach that conclusion.
Billed as Rickie Lee Jones performing Pirates “plus songs from throughout her career”, Rickie soon announced she would be performing her first two albums in their entirety, in the order the songs were written (to avoid ending the gig on too despairing a note…). Bearing in mind Rickie’s debut was a multi million seller, including the above information in the advance promotional push would likely have sold more tickets, so this was clearly about more than the money.
Pirates was of course a high charting record on release in 1981, but it was emphatically NOT her debut self titled album part two and didn’t end up selling in such high quantities. Both albums are full of great, memorable songs, but Pirates is the kind of singular record that attracts a certain type of devotion, the type of album that you go back to again and again and in particular in those all too familiar times of crisis or general emotional trauma.
If Rickie has never again quite equalled the emotional pull or sheer thrill of Pirates , that’s no great sin, as she’s made a lot of great music since and has never played it safe.
As the set flowed through such early songs as “Easy Money” and “Weasel and the White Boys Cool” two things became clear, the seven piece band including three piece horn section, were playing these songs with skill and love, I’m no muso but this was the kind of beautiful performance it takes real ability and subtlety to conjure up. Secondly; that even at this early stage in her career Rickie was writing in a unique style, no wonder her boyfriend at the time disputed her claim to have written both songs!
Highlights in this section of the set were many but “Night Train” in particular achieved a hypnotic pull that seemed to surprise even Rickie.
But then we hit heartbreak; and “Skeletons” ushers in Pirates in all it’s spooked, majestic glory.
Rickie’s account of writing some of these songs, in a Chandleresque apartment situated in a Hollywood back alley, against the backdrop of her break up with Tom Waits, gives you just a glimpse into how such unique music came into existence.
Each song feels like a mini drama, full of characters and fine detail, musically, the ground seems to shift within songs, mirroring the emotional highs and lows sketched out within.
Rickie sits at the grand piano lost in the moment, this was no artist providing efficient cover versions of her own songs, joking about her piano skills she inhabited this music once again, directing the band as she did so.
With a voice that retains much of it’s range and uniqueness, we revisited the underlying desperation of “We Belong Together”, the tragedy of “Skeletons” and the wistful sadness at the heart of “Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)”. The lingering familar feeling of being lost and bewildered with just a grain of hope left fills these songs with a durability that will keep them in rotation in times of emotional need for many years to come.
As Rickie eased into the final few songs (she cheated and held over ““After Hours” and “Company” for the home stretch) you could only hope she felt some sense of satisfaction at hearing this music brought to life so convincingly, for me this was one to add to that list of all time great gigs…
