EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOMS - Live Review [4 April 2000]

We arrived to discover three girls and a boy onstage doing a pretty cool Sleater-Kinney/Urusei Yatsura kind of thing. Who they are we do not know until ‘We’re AKIRA’ they tell us helpfully as they leave. Ah. I’d like to see them again properly.

Then four red-shirted black-haired grinning demons snuck onstage and proceeded to tear our hearts apart. This was the arrival of ...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD and I was seriously excited. Although I’d seen pictures of them I was kind of stunned by just how cool they all looked. And then they played. And I found my new favourite band. Conrad says he knows a good band if they make you laugh when they’re playing and they certainly put that into practice. Conrad and Jason are the twin rocket-fuelled tricksters of the band - they swap instruments, run around and make fun.

At one point Jason jumps into the audience and wanders around ranting in his microphone. The bouncers rush in and look on meanly but helplessly. Then Conrad stands with one foot on the stage and one on the barrier so he’s standing directly over the bouncers who suddenly look really freaked out and scuttle to the sides. It’s excellent and I’m standing there laughing with my camera in hand, not even thinking about photos. Not that I don’t get my fair share of photo opportunities - Trail of Dead flail around with no concern for body or instrument. They zip through a 5 or 6 song set, playing songs from both albums and finish with A Perfect Teenhood, surely their most frantic song to date. They’re loud, intense, enthusiastic and utterly exhilerating. Afterwards, Jason dons his trademark stetson and is seen dancing to Mogwai. You’ve got to love them.

You’d think after that, MOGWAI would be a disappointment but I can honestly say they were the best I’ve seen them. I could see the signs at the chemikal party - the understated subtle power. In the past, they had the surprise element - the vast majority of the audience were unprepared for the loud/quiet shifts. And by the time of the CODY tour they were resorting to sheer volume - impressive for some but a worrying glimpse of a future of Stadium Mogwai for others. They went from looking like they weren’t quite in control of the noise, that it might prove too much for them to pretending they couldn’t control the noise, that it was going to destroy us all. Now they’re proud to admit that they control the noise - it’s their noise, they make it - Mogwai have grown up I think. The changes in volume are not a shock anymore - they’re an integral part and natural progression of the songs.

Stuart shuffled onstage alone and started with Punk Rock then the rest of the band appeared to play one of the most inspired setlists ever including some of the shorter and quieter moments of CODY and breathing new life into the older well-travelled parts of Young Team . This was also a warm-up for ATP with Mogwai testing out their new string section on two new songs. The first (currently known as String Song) is swaying and sad and I think we all smiled when we heard Stuart was singing about spaceships. But it’s the second new song, the jewish song My Father, My King that had everyone, well, stunned and swooning. It takes a simple motif and hypnotises you through every emotion imaginable. There’s a bit where it changes key and my heart just stops. I could quite happily survive with only this song for the rest of my life.

I was rather dismayed that the encore of the slightly tiresome Fear Satan was going to stomp on this perfect ending. But astoundingly, Mogwai had found another way to re-invent their party piece, making it more rhythmic and noisy and downright evil. All power to them - they’ve still got magic and surprises up their sleeves.