I saw Grinderman at their debut at All Tomorrows Parties this year and tonight’s show was as if they never left that stage in Butlins, as if the show had just gone on. The same raw and powerful thrust, throwing their weight like a hammer on an anvil. And not surprisingly. This band has been together for a long, long time as core members of Nick Cave And The bad Seeds. It’s not a vehicle for Cave anymore but a tight fix from all members. Everyone has been stamping their feet in other bands: Warren Ellis in The Dirty Three, Martin P. Casey in The Triffids and Jim Sclavunos in The Cramps and his own set up The Vanity Set. A well heeled band of “elegant degenerates” It’s this familiar sound that will get fans of all of the above moving and loving this new incarnation and will win over new fans in this new world of music where old and new alike are lauded.
Ellis is more subdued in Grinderman than in The Dirty 3, leaving the brow beating lead to Cave. Sclavunos is his usual knotted brow self and Casey is constantly intent on his guitar. The strident controlled heartbeat of the Bad Seeds is here and they sound darker and more ethereal, no majors here all minor and deep strung.
The stand out songs in this set were, for me, crushed as I was twixt fan and fence in front, No Pussy Blues, which demanded and received a robust and hearty response from the crowd with smiles all round from the band, and the smouldering living room sleaze of Go Tell The Women. Although occasionally some songs echoed each other and were therefore a little bland but the turbulence of the emotion and familiarity of the core of the music itself wins over.
