What a disappointment.
The gig was without atmosphere. OK, people jumped around at the front, but I=
=20
have seen Mother Earth play brilliantly, and here they only played=20
averagely. They weren't tight, a lot of the songs sounded very similar to=20
each other, in terms of feel and orchestration. And the band only played for=
=20
an hour (I don't give a shit about the support bands - I didn't see=20
Coolershaker and Out Of My Hair who have released the same really good=20
single twice, were appalling) which is not good for =A37.00. That said,=
there=20
were highlights - Stoned Woman showed that the band remember their earlier=
=20
stuff and sounded wonderful, Institution Man was, apart from Jesse, the only=
=20
song which didn't have guitar, bass, drums, hammond and vocals blasting on=
=20
full all the way through and sounded very good. The problem Mother Earth=20
have is that, dynamically, if you play at full volume you can't get any=20
louder when you want to accentuate a beat / off-beat. One of the great=20
things about acid-jazz / funk / jazz (and decent rock music as well) is the=
=20
use of space. A sparse arrangement will sound good if done well. A sparse=20
arrangement means everyone plays some of the time, sometimes all at once,=20
but sometimes not or not very much. Mother Earth (live at least) seem to=20
have an on / off switch with not much in the in-between areas.
Hopefully this deterioration is merely a passing phase rather than a band on=
=20
the downslope since despite this flaming, I do love their music and think=20
they are a great band (some of the time).
How can we make peace with those who would kill us?
Simon Brown
s.j.brown@ucl.ac.uk
UCL Geology (2nd year)