XTC On Tour…sort of…

[www.extc.co.uk]

I’m sure Andy Partridge is REAL happy about this…

Good.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

> I’m sure Andy Partridge is REAL happy about this…

As long as he receives whatever performance royalties he's legitimately entitled to from Terry's band, why should Andy mind? (Other than being his usual curmudgeonly complaining self.) The fan website Chalkhills lists at least half a dozen tribute bands that presumably still are active ... and Andy is quoted as being a fan of at least one of them.

I wouldn't mind going to see their Seattle show in March, although I'd be more enthusiastic if it was somewhere other than the Triple Door Tavern. That's more of a supper-club place, not a proper rock 'n' roll venue. Then again, Terry (or his manager) might feel that anyone who's a fan enough to go see an XTC tribute has probably aged to the point where they'd like to see the band in relative comfort. (And in fairness, the ticket prices aren't too bad, at least for the Triple Door.)

I read that this was a "XTC approved" band. Considering that Chambers just finished playing XTC songs with Colin Moulding, I figure Colin approves. They're playing at the City Winery here in DC which sounds a lot like the venue in Seattle. I think we've reached an age where the artists we like won't be booking in rock and roll clubs anymore because the fans don't go to those places much.

I've seen Midge Ure and Graham Parker in City Winery clubs. They are a non-abusive venue that caters to the old fans who don't want to see the acts in a dive bar [though I saw Ure in one of those, too]. City Winery chain is a great, upmarket venue that gives acts a great platform and probably treats them and the fans better than they are used to. The clubs [Atlanta, Nashville] had great sound, weren't abusively loud, and the seating and sight lines were well considered.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2022 12:32PM by Post-Punk Monk.

Oh, please don't get me wrong, I've seen a couple shows at the Triple Door (including Midge Ure). And I've seen quite a few shows at Dimitriou's. Both are very nice supper-club venues. But they just aren't rock 'n' roll joints, to my way of thinking.

Maybe I'll reach a point in my life where my desire for a comfortable vantage point and less jostling by strangers influences my choice of what shows I'll see and where I'll see them. But I'm just not there yet. (I'd like to think that's a good sign.)

Last time XTC toured North America (circa 1982), they played a show here in Ottawa at the National Arts Center, which is not a typical Rock 'n Roll venue (think Sydney Opera House as a point of comparison - it's built of the same materials and in the same general style, except in the shape of interlocking hexagons instead of a seashell, and is usually a venue for classical music and ballet). The show was hardly advertised - at least on the media I was following in my days as a high school student - so I learned about it post facto and still rue myself for missing it.

My point being that, even back in the day, XTC would already not be playing the expected venues.

I know what you mean, Philippe. At least one of my friends has told me about two XTC shows he saw here -- one they headlined at the Showbox, and one where they opened for The Police at the Paramount Theatre. Forty years after the fact, yet I'm actually jealous.

I decided to go see this show last night. I couldn't help but think back to seeing The Manhattan Transfer, about three years ago. The vocal quartet had done a marvelous version of "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul." My wife and I were bowled over that night -- and on the drive home, we realized neither of us ever had seen any band play an XTC song before. So I realized, "What, this band is devoting the whole night to this repertoire? I can't miss this!"

And I'm glad I didn't, because it was a blast! My seat was very close to stage left. My ticket had said "partially obstructed view," but apart from the banister for the steps up to my tier, the view was clear. Sound quality was good, and the band was tight. And Terry's drumming has lost none of its power.

Steve Tilling, who was in the project/band TC&I with Terry and Colin, handled lead vocals and rhythm guitar. (His voice is almost a dead ringer for Colin's.) As the setlist attests, they didn't stick just to songs that Terry had played on originally. They covered the whole range of XTC's catalog, plus a song from TC&I.

And as you probably can guess, the audience was terrific. Plenty of people there looked old enough to have been fans back when the band still was active, but quite a few younger people were there as well. Looking around from my vantage point, practically everybody was singing along to every song. It simply was great to be at a show where I just knew that everybody there really had come for the music; I didn't see any clutch of people just yakking amongst themselves while the band was playing (a pet peeve of mine).

SET 1:
This Is Pop
Statue of Liberty
No Language in Our Lungs
Towers of London
Wonderland
Scatter Me
Sacrificial Bonfire
Big Day
No Thugs in Our House
Standing In for Joe
Ball and Chain
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead

SET 2:
Dear God
King for a Day
Sgt Rock Is Going to Help Me
Earn Enough for Us
The Mayor of Simpleton
Where Did the Ordinary People Go?
Grass
The Meeting Place
Respectable Street
Generals and Majors

ENCORE:
Making Plans for Nigel
Senses Working Overtime
Stupidly Happy
Life Begins at the Hop

Delvin - thanks. I was 95% planning to go this but your review put me in the 100% range.

I'm confident you'll have a good time, Heff.

A close friend of mine, who's about 15 years older than me and has seen shows that blow my mind to hear about (Hendrix, the unsigned Pink Floyd, the young Rolling Stones), saw XTC back in the day -- even interviewed Andy and Colin for the local paper. She turned up her nose at the idea of seeing eXTC, partly on the grounds that the lead singer looks too much like Frank Zappa.

I didn't pick on her for that, but I did remind her that, for some of thus who never got to see the original band, this is a real treat. (Remember, I'm the guy who loved seeing Queen + Adam Lambert, even though a few of my friends who'd seen Freddie scoffed at the idea.)

I saw this incarnation of EXTC last night here in Portland and it was pretty great. They're now performing as a trio and I don't know if this dude Steve Hampton was playing lead when they toured last year, but he was a good guitarist and a decent enough vocalist. As Delvin noted last year, Terry is still a very powerful drummer and unfortunately he was way too high in the mix, which was a little too loud anyway. Who woulda guessed I'd walk out of an EXTC show with my ears ringing?

I didn't keep a running tally of the setlist, but it was greatly centered around Black Sea tunes, which was fine by me. Hearing deep cuts like "Paper and Iron" and "Rocket from a Bottle" performed live was pretty awesome. Unsurprisingly there was nothing from Go 2, and also nothing from Mummer, The Big Express, or either of the last two albums. And they didn't get around to anything from Drums and Wires till near the end ("Life Begins at the Hop" and "Nigel"). One song each from Skylarking ("Grass"), O&L ("Mayor of Simpleton"), and Nonsuch ("Pumpkinhead"), and maybe 4 from English Settlement, including - to my delight - "Jason and the Argonauts."

Anyway, they're totally worth seeing if you're an XTC fan (according to the back of the t-shirt I bought, they're headed east from Oregon!). The crowd was mostly older folks, natch, and several white-haired and bald dudes seemed to be in absolute rapture to finally be seeing a band that clearly meant a lot to them. While it was slightly annoying that the guy in front of me couldn't stop standing and waving his arms around wildly, I could scarcely blame him. Tons of fun.

Glad to know it was a great time, Rhett. They're playing as a trio now? Hmmm ... checking the band's web site, it appears to be the same lineup as last year's tour, minus guitarist/vocalist Steve Tilling. Sounds as if they still deliver the goods, though. Which is pleasing news, as we're going to see them this weekend. Same venue, a year (almost to the day) later ... but when I saw that they'd been booked for a return to Seattle, I knew I had to take my wife to see them.

Yep - I took my wife too and she dug it a lot. She was a passing XTC fan, having heard most of their stuff at some point while only ever owning English Settlement prior to getting saddled with me. It rekindled interest in them though and she said she spent most of yesterday at work listening to full albums on YouTube that she hadn't heard in decades. Hope you and Jana have as much fun as we did!

I don't expect to ever see XTC but this is a delightful bit of journalism about their legacy in humdrum Swindon (and a possibility of reuniting).

[www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk]

Argh, no "Helicopter," "Complicated Game," "Mechanik Dancing" or Dukes of the Stratosphear? Guess you can't play everything. I realize that, in this case, my faves are not necessarily fan favorites or hits. But glad to hear that they did that catalog justice.

The only missing track that surprised me in thatb set list was "Ten Feet Tall", only because it was their first one to get signifcant radio airplay in the U.S. But I won't quibble with what is a great, career-encompassing set. They have such a great catalogue, it's impossible to play everyone's favorites, and it's nice that they did not only focus on the singles.

I would have loved to be there.

Out of 26 songs, half of them are songs that XTC themselves never performed live (including "Scatter Me," a TC&I song). And interestingly, the selections are evenly divided between Andy's songs and Colin's.

We had a great time at last night's show. The setlist was somewhat different from last year's -- no TC&I material, and a much shorter encore. But it was still terrific. Big emphasis on Black Sea (which I loved) and Skylarking (which we both loved).

SET 1:
This Is Pop
Statue of Liberty
No Language in Our Lungs
Wonderland
Love on a Farmboy's Wages
Standing In for Joe
Towers of London
Paper and Iron (Notes and Coins)
Senses Working Overtime
Jason and the Argonauts
Ball and Chain
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead

SET 2:
Summer's Cauldron/Grass
Big Day
The Mayor of Simpleton
The Meeting Place
Earn Enough for Us
No Thugs in Our House
Sgt Rock Is Going to Help Me
Rocket from a Bottle
Respectable Street
Generals and Majors
Making Plans for Nigel
Life Begins at the Hop

ENCORE:
Stupidly Happy

The musicians were hanging out at the swag booth after the set, and we got to chat with Steve Hampton for a little while. I asked him what had happened with Steve Tilling, their original lead singer. He explained that the guy went into a bit of a meltdown, about six months ago, and simply left the band and went home. Since then, Steve has lobbied hard to add a fourth musician to the lineup, so he doesn't have to carry all of the weight on guitar. (He's a good guitarist, but the sound would've benefited from more depth and texture at times.) But for some reason, Terry prefers it as a trio. "I keep trying," Steve said, "but you can't argue with the boss."

Wow -so interesting that the set lists were so different just days apart! And to say nothing of the fact that y'all both got two sets and an encore! At ours, Hampton said right before the last song "we don't have to do that stupid thing where we walk off the stage and wait on you to call us back, do we?" I would have loved to have gotten more from Skylarking (especially "Earn Enough For Us") and Mummer, but oh well.

The eXTC web site lists tour dates in the eastern U.S. in spring 2024, and European tour dates in the summer. (The URL is different from the link earlier in this thread.)

It appears that Steve Hampton has not persuaded Terry Chambers to bring in a fourth musician. As he said, you can't argue with the boss.

Just seen eXTC live at The Forge in Camden Town London absolutely loved it. It's also a proper music venue, beer in cans!.