I'll get my moan out of the way first- the crowd at The Apollo, or certain parts of it, were a pain on Saturday night, people talking constantly throughout the songs, especially the quieter ones where The Beta Band were locked into their soft psychedelic folk. What you really don't need at that point is several pairs of people, mainly men, chattering to each other all the way through loudly. The same people then treated Dry The Rain as their own personal anthem, sang along all the way through it and then went back to talking to each other at volume, louder now because the songs had got louder. Why anyone would pay the best part of £50 for a ticket only to talk all the way through the gig is beyond me. It wasn't just around me either. Several people standing in different points in the crowd on Saturday night said similar. It's a shame because it spoils the gig.
The Beta Band, despite all of this, were really good, back together after a twenty one year absence and playing the last night of the UK tour before heading to the USA. The stage set and projections and films are superb, their left of centre, slightly freaked out sense of humour beamed out in the pre- gig films. The stage has bongos, congas and spare drum kits set up, banks of synths and decks, a bird of prey on a stick and potted plants. The four band members are welcomed like returning heroes and the first half of the set is littered with lovely moments- She's The One is spaced out folk, softly sung and played, the Jew's harp part right up in the mix with a pause before the second half's psychedelic freak out, the band sounding more like 1967 Pink Floyd than ever.
The tour is billed as The Three EPs tour but they don't just play the tracks from the compilation, the y mix it up and throw in songs from the rest of their back catalogue too. Assessment from Heroes To Zeros is gnarly, Steve Mason's electric guitar and the drums bouncing around the venue. Opening song Inner Meet Me is a lost 60s folk/ psyche strum. Push It Out and Needles In My Eyes both stand out as spooked, hushed late 90s psyche/ folk high points. Dr. Baker and Dog's Got A Bone are accompanied by spaced out lights and projections.
The band jump between instruments, Mason often putting his guitar down to play the congas, John MacLean playing synths, keys, samples, trumpet, scratching on the turntables and visibly having the time of his life, and drummer Robin Jones leaving his drum kit to take the spotlight on guitar for one song.
They play Dry The Rain towards the end and it has an instant effect on the crowd, the crowd singing along, a sea of hands, pint glasses and phones in the air. When the band and crowd sing the last lines together it's genuinely a bit of a moment, and when the band put their instruments down there's a pause and the crowd starts singing the lines again- ' If there's something inside that you want to say/ Say it out loud, it will be OK'. The band look out, pick their guitars back up and slip back into the song, another minute of Dry The Rain, band and crowd feeding off each other. The encore is a stunner, Steve Mason in electric wrap around shades being the front man, out at the edge of the stage. They stretch out the trippy, waking- from- a- dream electronic hip hop of Squares, from 2001's Hot Shots II, built on the famous sample from Gunter Kallmann Choir, Mason repeating the line, 'Daydream/ I fell asleep amid the flowers'. They finish with The House Song, all four members of the band at drum kits, beating rhythms out as the lights strafe the stalls of the Apollo.
It's good to have them back.
