I was in two minds about going to see Mercury Rev at New Century Hall last Friday night. A friend who saw them in Dublin last year said they were a bit hit and miss and the album, Born Horses, has some good songs on it and some I'm less sure about. But, I've been playing the pair of late 20th and early 21st century albums that are probably their peak- Deserter's Songs and All Is Dream- a lot recently and the possibility of seeing those songs played live was very tempting. My brother was keen, several friends were going and there were some tickets left so I took the risk and it more than paid off. Mercury Rev were on fire and as they wend their way across the country this month anyone going to any of the other dates is in for a good evening.
The two core members, singer/ guitarist Jonathan Donohue and guitarist Grasshopper, have been joined by a new piano/ sax/ flute player Jesse Chandler and keys player Marion Genser plus a drummer (set up at the side of the stage) who loves the motorik kraut rhythms. They arrived on stage one by one, picking their way into the ambient soundscape of The Little Bird. Donohue arrives, very much the frontman, theatrical hand gestures and long cuffs sticking out from under his black jacket and then they burst into Tonite It Shows. From that point on their homebrewed combination of 1940s Disney soundtracks, 60s psychedelia, 90s alt- rock, their own weird Baroque Americana, long drawn out Tangerine Dream style sections and bursts of twin guitar, everyone playing everything together and really loudly, really hits home.
Halfway through, after a run of psychedelic torch songs, Jonathan leans into to the mic and starts speaking Rutger Hauer's famous lines from Blade Runner, 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe, attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I've watched C- Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate... all these things will be lost in time... like tears in rain'. Jesse gets the sax out and they play a full cover of Vangelis' Tears In Rain from the Blade Runner soundtrack that drifts by beautifully. Then the dive into Goddess On A Hiway, blasting into the chorus with the lines 'And I know it ain't gonna last/ When I see your eyes arrive/ They explode like two bugs on glass...
The second half of the set is perfectly weighed- Ancient Love from Born Horses, a song with a lengthy spoken word section inspired by the words of Robert Creeley and sumptuous, orchestral early 70s easy listening.
Tides Of The Moon from All Is Dream is followed by the always powerful Holes from Deserter's Songs, a song that still startles not least the bit where the band drop down and Donohue sings, 'Holes/ Dug by little moles/ Angry jealous spies/ They got telephones for eyes'. And then Opus 40, a song seemingly inspired equally by 1920s cinema and wasted 60s cosmic psychedelia, the existential lyric 'I'm alive she cried but I don't know what it means' at its heart. 'Tears in waves/ Minds on fire'. Donohue is conducting the band, throwing his arms out left and right. Finally the play The Dark Is Rising, the huge, emotive and affecting opening song from 2001's All Is Dream, a song about love and loss set to a grand swell of orchestral psychedelia, Jonathan crooning 'In my dreams I'm always strong'. I'm sure I can't be the only wiping their eyes.
The band start to wind the song down, Jonathan departs, the musicians leave one by one and that's it, no encore, the songs played almost without a gap between them, one becoming the next and fading out as they faded in ninety minutes earlier.
The two pictures above are mine. This one is from the band's Facebook page taken by Vittorio Bongiorno.
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