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@ the Old Vic, Nottingham 7.11.01 (review © Jon Horne 2001) from Touch Nottingham (internet magazine and What's On guide) 
You can't heave a brick these days without hitting an alt.country band. There was I, sitting in the Broadway bar at nine o'clock on a Wednesday night, sulking because I didn't have time to get down to Leicester and see the Handsome Family, when someone piped up: "Anyone fancy seeing the Willard Grant Conspiracy?" In my days as an average-to-ropey bass player, I once played a pub in Stafford, where the room was L-shaped, and the bar was right next to the stage. The only ways to see the group were either to be in the process of buying a drink, to stand around getting in the way of people who were buying drinks, or to sit on the front of the stage and risk getting trodden on by me or the singer. Everyone else had to stand behind a wall and try to imagine what we looked like. Not that we were the prettiest group in the world, but you know, it's nice to communicate with the audience a little bit. OK, so that place in Stafford is the worst-designed music pub in the world. The second worst has to be the Old Vic. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place for a drink, the sound is pretty good, and the room is rectangular, so you can at least see the band. The trouble is, the stage is right in front of the bar. Maybe twenty people can sit or stand in front of the group, and everyone else is off to one side. You feel like an observer, rather than part of the audience. I've seen groups at the Old Vic who couldn't make any connection with an audience that was outside their field of vision, and who ended up staring at the floor and getting ratty with each other. Equally I've seen old-fashioned entertainers such as Max Romeo (whose evangelical style depends totally on communication with the audience) play this medium-sized pub as if it were a stadium, using the dancefloor like a catwalk - anything it took to draw the crowd in. The Willard Grant Conspiracy do something rather different. They sit around on-stage as if it were their own little corner of the room. They do their thing, just about loud enough for you to hear, and you can watch them if you like. Their thing is a modern, simplified form of chamber music, conversational, full of atmosphere and narrative, but short on high drama. Feeling like an observer is pretty much the point. Outside of a folk club, you will probably never hear a quieter group than WGC. Their drummer has stayed at home for this tour. Given the choice (according to singer Robert Fisher), they wouldn't be bothering with amplifiers either. Once, when Elvis Costello was asked why he had stopped writing punchy and aggressive songs, he likened his old style to that of a thug shouting at you in the street - noisy but ineffectual. His new, softer approach, he said, was more like someone whispering in your ear: "I'm going to kill you." Robert Fisher is a great whisperer. It helps, as far as atmosphere goes, that he and his group look like psychopaths. I'm not sure that there is a nice way of saying that WGC are one of the most disturbing-looking groups you're ever likely to see on a Nottingham stage. They are also one of the most charismatic. Reclining in a chair which, like most chairs, is a little too small for him, Fisher is a great, laconic storyteller, whilst his bandmates (guitarist Paul Austin and viola player David Michael Curry, who both spent the set staring out at the crowd like frightened rabbits, deliberately avoiding Fisher's gaze) are experts at buoying-up the sound without getting in the way of the stories being told. Further support on this tour is given by a trumpet-player and a pianist (neither of whom are full-time members of the group, presumably because they look relatively normal). Alt.country is all about keeping something back. Giving the audience what they want, when they want it, is not part of the deal. That is what separates alt.country from straight country and rootsy rock/folk. WGC keep nigh on everything back. You only realise exactly what you're missing during the rare moments when Austin and Curry sing. With their harmonies in place, Fisher is able to rock back and let out a bellow that sounds somewhere between an Appalachian moan and an operatic high-C. This man is a great singer, and he has no intention of showing it. Being stingy with your talent: that's cool, and downright alternative. I don't know what to make of WGC. They make a song about baseball sound like a murder ballad. They introduce their own murder ballads as if they were traditional laments, and sing them as if they were reading the stories from a newspaper. They're country, but the sound has more in common with the Velvet Underground than with anyone else. Or perhaps that's just the viola. As far as I've heard, their records aren't up to much - in common with most records that come out of the alt.country scene, they're a bit flat-sounding. Live, however, WGC are something quite different. Three ugly blokes and their two friends sitting in the corner of a pub can sometimes make for a compelling night. - - - Link: Willard Grant Conspiracy homepage - - - read more rants and raves |