4 September, 1997 - New York, NY - Westbeth Theatre

review by me
ticket stub and set list at bottom

So, my first thought was - isn’t it very strange that Mark Lanegan is playing a solo show at all? Then my next thought was, who cares, as long as I get to go. Turns out I was right; it was strange, but who cares - I got to go!

  The part of the theatre the show was in was really small, and nearly empty at first. The stage was only about 2 feet high, and you could walk right up to it. People were wandering in and out for most of the opening bands, but there was a group of people sitting on the floor in front of the stage to watch. As they started to set up for the band right before Lanegan, it started to fill in a little, so I moved to sit up front and secure a spot. Good move. By the time Damien Jurado had finished (and he wasn’t half bad), the place had filled in, and everyone was standing up.

While the equipment was being set up, I noticed some music stands being brought in, which probably should have clued me in. By that time, though, Mark had appeared by the side of the stage, so I was busy watching him talk to someone. The reason this was so fascinating was because of the number of times he smiled and laughed - which I took as a good sign. When he walked on to the stage everyone started clapping, which hadn’t happened with any of the previous bands. Most of them were there to see him, as I had suspected.

He started out with Mockingbirds. Of course if sounded great, but I’m not going to keep mentioning that over and over! Right after the song was over, he said “This is the first time we played together, rehearsed, anything. You can count the fuck-ups, there’ll be a quiz at the end of the night.” He seemed to be in a good mood when he said it, but it reminded me about the music stands....

Ugly Sunday was next, after which one of the band members asked for more of something in the moniters. Mark took that opportunity to say “yeah, and you can bring that bright light way down, if you know what I mean”. There was one light shining right across his face, but the thing that struck me was the fact that dead center and a couple rows back, some guy was taking picture after picture with a huge flash. Even thought his eyes were closed as he sang, he flinched visably every time that stupid flash went off. The guy never did take the hint.

He also sang The River Rise, and House a Home, and sometime in there the ‘one in every crowd’ reared its ugly head. This guy was muttering to his friend between songs, and I distinctly heard the words “fucking drunk”. So did Lanegan. He just sort of turned his head, and said “that’s recovering drunk, to you.” He didn’t get nasty, or even look that upset. The guy tried a couple more times, but he was ignored after that.

Then came the start of Undertow, which was the beginning of the end. The band COULD NOT get it right. But more on that in a minute... They tried twice, while Mark just stood with his head cocked, listening for something he could work with. He even went back and talked to them once, but it didn’t help. He kinda smiled, said “thank you, goodnight” - but he still stayed while they tried it one last time. It wasn’t any better, so he left. He walked off - he didn’t storm away or say any more.

The crowd must have understood, because no one said a word. Well, except the rude guy, whose incoherent yelling started a fight with one of the musicians and beer bottles began flying through the air. That ended with no major damage done, and so deserves no more attention. I hung around for a while, and there were still two more bands to play, but eventually I wandered out. I certainly hope he didn’t end up going back on, but since they had already taken the equipment down, I figured he wouldn’t.

As I later learned, most of the band did know the songs, and had had a limited amount of time to practice together. It was just the accoustic guitar player who hadn't made the practices, and the problem with Undertow was that he was trying to go right into Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which threw off all the others. They did have the sheet music on stage because of the short notice for the show, but really weren't badly prepared for the most part. This helps explain why Mark didn't seem too upset, it was just one of those things that can happen. The band members were: Drums - Garret Shavlik, Bass - Steve Tallent, Electric Guitar - Paul 'Solger' Dana. The wayward accoustic guitar player was Rob Roth.

After the things I’ve seen in print about him, I was actually impressed with the amount of humor and restraint Mark displayed throughout the whole string of events. I was standing 2 feet away from him as he did four songs I never thought I’d get to hear live, and somehow I was happy enough with that. Did I ever mention how incredibly great he sounded for those songs? Well, he sounded even better than how I could describe it anyhow.