This is a gig I’d been waiting ten years for. For years David Berman vowed that Silver Jews would never tour, stage fright was cited, among other things, and I’d almost given up hope. The kicking of his long-standing drug habit and the advent of the brilliant Tanglewood Numbers album seem to have produced a change in attitude and, backed up by his wife Cassie on bass duties and the considerable talents of Tony Crow on keyboards and Will Tyler on guitar, members of Lambchop both, Berman is out on the road, on a mammoth tour, making up for lost time.

Support was from the very entertaining Marble Valley fronted by ex-Pavement drummer Steve West and comprising a bunch of middle aged men basically having a good time, mixing up different musical styles from hip hop through krautrock to indie pop all laced with a healthy dollop of pavement-esque slackerdom. I was reminded more than once of The B-52’s thanks to the upbeat nature of the songs and to West’s excellent impression of a laid back Fred Schneider.

Silver Jews were every bit as great as I’d expected them to be. With such a rich back catalogue and such an accomplished band it would have been difficult for them to fuck it up and starting off with probably my favourite Jews song, “Black And Brown Shoes”, wasn’t a bad way to begin, even if Berman did forget the words as early as the second verse. There were the choicest picks from all five Jews albums with Tanglewood Numbers understandably getting the most exposure. It was great to hear full on versions of early tracks such as “Trains Across The Sea” and “New Orleans” which easily bettered their lo-fi album versions. They really seem to have picked the best two songs off each of the old albums: “Random Rules” and “Smith And Jones Forever” off American Water were sublime; “Slow Education” and “Horseleg Swastikas” off Bright Flight could maybe have been bettered by “Tennessee” and “I Remember Me”, but “Dallas” from The Natural Bridge was the highlight of the night thanks to the glorious vocal interplay between the Bermans.

Super charged versions of “Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed” and “Punks In The Beerlight” were the pick of the Tanglewood Numbers tunes with the band on full throttle all but drowning out David Berman’s vocals. Minus points for the soundman. The night ended with a poignant rendition of the harrowing “There Is A Place”, Berman, having exorcised the ghosts of his troubled past, now seemed to be revelling in his newly passion for performance. Hopefully the first tour won’t be the last.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 11:07 pm by The Ledge and is filed under Gig Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.