Tindersticks In Montreal

A thing of beauty, to say the least.

I wish I had discovered Tindersticks long ago. I should have. I always get a little cold sweat when I hear we came close to losing them before The Hungry Saw. In any case, last night was the first time I saw them. First, and hopefully not the last, because a talented bunch of artists like those should be seen over and over again. I don't see how they could ever get tiring.

I got to the La Tulipe pretty early, managing to secure a nice vantage spot and to not miss the weirdest first part ever (not Lhasa, the guys before her: I was open to the concept, but not entirely convinced by it). Sweet Lhasa De Sela doing a set of quiet songs, just her and the piano, was nice, and it perfectly set the melancholic tone of the evening, and the public loved her. But at last the band arrived, by 10pm, one member after the other to the intro to The Hungry Saw.

Not even sure we got a hello from Stuart Staples when he finally turned up for the next song, and I was surprised how much of a reluctant front man he appears to be. I wonder if he might not be a little bit shy. They played a good handful of songs from their latest release, including, the title track, Mother Dear, The Flicker Of A Little Girl, All The Love, Come Feel The Sun, Organist Entertains, and Boobar Come Back To Me (perhaps my personal favourite on the album) as well as a couple of older "hits", like Dying Slowly. The excellent performances went on one after the other, like a well oiled engine. The musicians appear to have a complete reverence for the that music they make, and are careful to play it to perfection, like it's really the only thing that matters to them. The three currently remaining members of Tindersticks (Staples, Neil Fraser on guitar and David Boulter or organ and piano) are joined for this tour by Thomas Belhom on drums, and Dan McKinna on bass. There are also multi-instrumentalists Terry Edwards and Mike Kearsey happily moving from saxophone to trumpet to cello (but don't quote me on it, I'm getting this information on the Live In Glasgow copy I got there).

Tindersticks is efficient, hardly loses time, and each songs was finished with a short and polite "thank you" from Staples. It's enough. He just had to be there. They just had to there. This is not just any band, this is one of the greatest band out there right now, whether you've heard about them or not. They have beautiful melodies, beautiful songs, but they perfectly illustrate how a lush, delicate orchestration with strings, saxophones (from alto to baritone, might I add) and trumpet can turns a simple, sorrowful tune into something purely divine. And to top it off, Tindersticks also happen to have one to be the most breathtaking and soulful vocalist of his generation singing with them.

Most importantly, there seems to be a real chemistry between all of them, as they appear to enjoy playing together, exchanging a lot of smiles throughout the concerts. Speaking of smiles, I think we got one from Staples at around the tenth song or so, and he finally seemed to grow at ease enough to utter a complete sentence by the end of their 1h15 or so set. Perhaps it's a matter of preserving his voice, I don't know, and the way I see it, when you're born with the gift of a golden voice like that, and when you put on a great show, you can do just whatever the heck you please.

Despite the relatively short set (although such quality music was a bargain for 23$), they came back for a long encore, five songs, including the beautiful My Sister, which I think the crowd was expecting (although I seriously don't understand all the woo-hooing on My Sister considering that it has to be the saddest song in history, cheering on that song would be like woo-hooing Eric Clapton in the middle of Tears In Heaven, although I do not know is My Sister is based on personal history). But we didn't have enough of 5 more songs, and clapped and clapped until they came back on stage with Lhasa and performed two songs, including That Leaving Feeling.

They were off the hook my midnight, a lovely evening it was, and I got their Live In Glasgow, which appears to be essentially the same set to keep me company until next time.