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| Track list: 1. John Peel Introduces the Wedding Present 2. Silver Shorts 3. Love Machine 4. Snake Eyes 5. Sports Car 6. Convertible 7. Click Click 8. My Favourite Dress 9. Real Thing 10. It's a Gas 11. Skin Diving 12. Sucker 13. Corduroy 14. Mini Prize Draw Running time: 44 minutes Released: 2007 |
So, with disc 4 of this box set we moved out of the studio and into live performances. This disc is a complete set from a 1996 BBC event, topped and tailed once more with John Peel himself. A few familiar tracks pop up again, but there are many here that haven't been heard on the previous 4 discs too.
After a break of three weeks I finally make the time for this one. I can't plead "too long" or "too much Wedding Present" because in the first instance this is a short gig set, and in the second I've hardly heard any of them in weeks. I managed to make myself (temporarily) sick of PJ Harvey's seminal Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea to and from work in the interim though!
John Peel introduces the set, then the first actual number has a tortuously long intro, but it sets up a peppy sound that the recording makes feel sparse, but I suspect in person it was a bit busier. The tune ends with an outro to match the intro... so the song itself is sandwiched between repetitive cycles that don't quite work for me. Thankfully Love Machine is straight into the meat of the song so the experience isn't repeated.
Clocks have gone forward, evenings have some light again. Hopefully this marks an uptick in weather, warmth and ultimately mood. I've been struggling for sleep lately and with work being full on I have been escaping my evenings in the cyclical grind of turn based strategy rather than more creative or expansive pursuits. I really like the lighter touch on the outro of Love Machine, sure the guitars come in for a final thrash but the tenor is nice. The crowd sound like a rowdy bunch; Gedge gives it a bit of chat between numbers (a line or two, no more), and then we're off again. The sound on this recording makes the guitars a little flat. I can hear the start of the spangly sound I associate with The Wedding Present, but it is strangled out rather than soaring free. Snake Eyes comes and goes in less than 2 minutes... it feels half baked.
The crowd noise is voracious between tracks but they drop to silence whilst the band are actually playing. It makes me wonder if this is natural or something engineered. Really like this version of Sports Car, even as I don't recognise the song from disc 3! Again, though, after the main vocal is done, the tune loses its interest. I've never seen the Wedding Present live; I don't think I've ever seen footage of them playing either... but I can imagine that David Gedge must be a pretty magnetic performer. His vision and person drives this vehicle and makes it work.
Oops! Click Click has a false start, with a predictable reaction from the crowd. Some kind of technical hitch... festivals! When it does get going the growl on the guitar part feels closer to the pickup for the recording. It's a glorious rumble, slightly fuzzy in shape but full of character, and as if to spite me for the last paragraph here it is the vocal that lets down the backing - though the tune is still better when both are in play. Isn't it funny how taste goes in waves? I've been mostly listening to growling guitar based indie in the last week or two and forgoing the jazz and folk that formed my mainstay for much of the last year. I've been skipping more folk song on shuffle than in a long while, looking for something louder, brasher and something that will give that kick.
This is hitting the spot from that point of view.
A few of these songs have Gedge's voice backed up by a female singer; she sounds as if she's closer to the mic somehow, despite clearly being backing it doesn't always come across that way, especially on Real Thing and I find that quite jarring. The track lengths here are misleading with significant downtime scattered through the set. Much less annoying if you're actually in the audience... but there we go. I find I am warming to the sound on this set though, it has a warmth to it, which makes those guitar riffs comfortable.
Over the course of the box set (with one more to finish) we've definitely moved from a raw, too bright, too strong sound to a rounder, tempered one. The way the guitars are used hasn't changed that much, but the tone they impart has. They're still bright and breezy but they're also controlled, not overdone. They're not the star, and everyone has accepted that. There is room for them to be slower, not 100mph all the time. That said, right now I think I hanker for some really loud stuff... not a good desire to have this late on a Sunday, but the growl on Corduroy is perfectly aligned with that desire. As it fades back down a bit to allow the vocal to breathe the tune loses the immediate appeal it held in the moment, but finds a new happy medium. This is the final number, after this is a recording of a prize draw, closing out the disc. Festivals!
Not sure what to look for in my library to pick up from there. The prize draw recording by the way has Peel and Gedge talking for 3 minutes, complete with Fast Show references and farce. The two clearly got on very well.
One to go.
After a break of three weeks I finally make the time for this one. I can't plead "too long" or "too much Wedding Present" because in the first instance this is a short gig set, and in the second I've hardly heard any of them in weeks. I managed to make myself (temporarily) sick of PJ Harvey's seminal Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea to and from work in the interim though!
John Peel introduces the set, then the first actual number has a tortuously long intro, but it sets up a peppy sound that the recording makes feel sparse, but I suspect in person it was a bit busier. The tune ends with an outro to match the intro... so the song itself is sandwiched between repetitive cycles that don't quite work for me. Thankfully Love Machine is straight into the meat of the song so the experience isn't repeated.
Clocks have gone forward, evenings have some light again. Hopefully this marks an uptick in weather, warmth and ultimately mood. I've been struggling for sleep lately and with work being full on I have been escaping my evenings in the cyclical grind of turn based strategy rather than more creative or expansive pursuits. I really like the lighter touch on the outro of Love Machine, sure the guitars come in for a final thrash but the tenor is nice. The crowd sound like a rowdy bunch; Gedge gives it a bit of chat between numbers (a line or two, no more), and then we're off again. The sound on this recording makes the guitars a little flat. I can hear the start of the spangly sound I associate with The Wedding Present, but it is strangled out rather than soaring free. Snake Eyes comes and goes in less than 2 minutes... it feels half baked.
The crowd noise is voracious between tracks but they drop to silence whilst the band are actually playing. It makes me wonder if this is natural or something engineered. Really like this version of Sports Car, even as I don't recognise the song from disc 3! Again, though, after the main vocal is done, the tune loses its interest. I've never seen the Wedding Present live; I don't think I've ever seen footage of them playing either... but I can imagine that David Gedge must be a pretty magnetic performer. His vision and person drives this vehicle and makes it work.
Oops! Click Click has a false start, with a predictable reaction from the crowd. Some kind of technical hitch... festivals! When it does get going the growl on the guitar part feels closer to the pickup for the recording. It's a glorious rumble, slightly fuzzy in shape but full of character, and as if to spite me for the last paragraph here it is the vocal that lets down the backing - though the tune is still better when both are in play. Isn't it funny how taste goes in waves? I've been mostly listening to growling guitar based indie in the last week or two and forgoing the jazz and folk that formed my mainstay for much of the last year. I've been skipping more folk song on shuffle than in a long while, looking for something louder, brasher and something that will give that kick.
This is hitting the spot from that point of view.
A few of these songs have Gedge's voice backed up by a female singer; she sounds as if she's closer to the mic somehow, despite clearly being backing it doesn't always come across that way, especially on Real Thing and I find that quite jarring. The track lengths here are misleading with significant downtime scattered through the set. Much less annoying if you're actually in the audience... but there we go. I find I am warming to the sound on this set though, it has a warmth to it, which makes those guitar riffs comfortable.
Over the course of the box set (with one more to finish) we've definitely moved from a raw, too bright, too strong sound to a rounder, tempered one. The way the guitars are used hasn't changed that much, but the tone they impart has. They're still bright and breezy but they're also controlled, not overdone. They're not the star, and everyone has accepted that. There is room for them to be slower, not 100mph all the time. That said, right now I think I hanker for some really loud stuff... not a good desire to have this late on a Sunday, but the growl on Corduroy is perfectly aligned with that desire. As it fades back down a bit to allow the vocal to breathe the tune loses the immediate appeal it held in the moment, but finds a new happy medium. This is the final number, after this is a recording of a prize draw, closing out the disc. Festivals!
Not sure what to look for in my library to pick up from there. The prize draw recording by the way has Peel and Gedge talking for 3 minutes, complete with Fast Show references and farce. The two clearly got on very well.
One to go.
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