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Tiger Lillies and Alexander Hacke: Mountains of Madness
Ether 2006, 17 March 2006
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

I'm not sure I entirely approve of "pop concerts" at the dear old South Bank.

On the one hand, I'm enough of an old fart these days to appreciate the chance of a sit-down and a clear view, rather than the sticky floors and surging crowds of more conventional venues. But the comfort afforded by such civilized surroundings tends not to mesh well with the more irritating behavioural tics of pop concert-goers: loud conversations, endless to-ing and fro-ing, couples making out and persistent invasions of personal space; they're exasperating enough at the Brixton Academy, never mind the QEH.

Anyway. I was blown away by the Tiger Lillies' production of Shockheaded Peter a few years ago at Hammersmith; and I've been fond of HP Lovecraft's weird fiction since I was a teenager. (For all that HP was a racist nutjob.) So I was hoping for something pretty spectacular from the combination of the two in the Mountains of Madness show, particularly with the addition of electronics from Alexander Hacke, formerly of einsturzende neubaten.

But my party, having arrived late (er, actually, just me, but I had the tickets) struggled to our seats (ah, hoist by my own petard) to be greeted by the sight of a pair of near-motionless knob-twiddlers against a backdrop of (yawn) vintage images of (yawn) kitsch (YAWN) Seventies (YAAAAWN) home interiors. This then went on for some considerable time, during which I began to wonder if the stream of attendees heading for the bar might not have a point. (Wow, that's a lot of (parentheses)).

For a while I considered the possibility that this might in fact be the electronic component of the show, perhaps a protracted introduction to the set proper. Would the floral wallpaper and earth-toned furniture in due course mutate, in suitably Lovecraftian fashion, to reveal Unimaginable Horrors lurking beneath the creepy-yet-mundane surface? And would the electronic burblings be punctured by an unearthly falsetto?

At one point I was convinced the decks were starting to float, presaging theatrics to come. But I think that may have had more to do with my residual 'flu than anything else. After some seemingly interminable blooping, the duo were revealed to be warm-up act K&A. Having outstayed their welcome by about thirty minutes, they left to the sound of somewhat derisory applause. (Someone rudely, but amusingly, started shouting "Bravissimo! Bravissimo!").

Intermission.

For some reason, I never seem to be able to write much about the actual music at a gig, only the ambience and props. (Well, I did say I was no good at writing about music). Actually, I think one of the reasons I like music so much is that it's about the only thing I don't automatically and immediately translate into written words. But let's give it a shot.

So, the Tiger Lillies. I didn't find this show as impressive as the last one. Having seen them perform before, I had some idea what to expect and so there wasn't as much (pleasant) shock value. Two other major factors were the aforementioned 'flu and audience distractions, which made it a little hard for me to follow the lyrics. Other than the spoken biographical interludes, and the occasional chorus, I mostly got only the purely auditory component of the show.

But the auditory component was nothing to sneer at; frontman Martyn Jacques' extraordinary voice would have been worth the price of admission alone. Add to that Hacke's doomy electronics, which integrated surprisingly well with the Lillies' whole brechtian-punk-cabaret thing, and some snappy numbers against a backdrop of relatively simple but effective visuals, and it was still a magnificent spectacle.

So in the end, I got the Lillies but not really the Lovecraft. Afterwards, I went up to the Hayward Pavilion, where Minotaur Shock was performing (irritatingly, I had missed Instrumental while enduring K&A's Sonic Knitwear bollocks upstairs). It was packed with elegant women and dishevelled men. But practically no squid-headed Great Old Ones. So I left to seek my eldritch horrors elsewhere.