A gig featuring the Throwing Muses and also founder member Tanya Donelly on the same bill was always likely to be popular, and arriving late was not my best idea. The Concorde 2 was filled to capacity and I could only squeeze in at the back to see some of Tanya Donelly’s support set. It sounded pretty good, her voice as sweet as it was with her first band, and later with belly, and a nice line in low-key country-tinged songs. The band, featuring Sam Davol of the Magnetic Fields on cello, sound good too and it is very well received set. Less than half the songs, viewed through the crowd’ is all I get though so I can’t offer up any more insightful comment.
I have been a fan of Throwing Muses since I first heard them play ‘Dizzy’ on a 1989 episode of Snub TV, a performance available on YouTube here. I must confess however that, apart from a blistering set at the Breeders’ ATP, I haven’t managed to see the band play live in the subsequent 25 years. I own a number of their albums, as well as discs by Kristin Hersh solo and side project 50 Foot Wave, but by no means a complete collection and nothing from recent years. This does mean that for most of the set I am unfamiliar with the songs being played, but that doesn’t get in the way of the power of the performance.
Hersh is a very intense stage presence, her eyes staring intently straight ahead and her voice and guitar playing equally direct. The music is pretty fierce, with little of the pop sensibilities of the band’s 90s output on show. That doesn’t mean that these are difficult songs, but it is the rawer Throwing Muses, the band who returned from hiatus in 2003, that we are seeing tonight.
About halfway through the set it is no surprise that we welcome Tanya Donelly to the stage to add guitar and vocals to a burst of songs from the band’s albums when they were still a four piece. In this form they sound very different, a little less intense but with more of a focus on melody and harmony. ‘Red Shoes’, from their last album before Donelly left the band, sounds great and I’m suddenly very nostalgic.
As soon as the expanded band part of the set ends they leave the stage to huge applause. It is no surprise when they return (as a three piece again) a few minutes later.
Somehow they sound even more intense during this encore, the songs seem almost hypnotic and it is easy to forget the heat and crowds in the venue. They leave the stage and, more of a surprise this time, return again for one last burst. Two encores is generous, but you sense the crowd could handle a whole lot more when they finally leave for the last time.
By Dorian Rogers
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