Two Countries, Two Concert Recaps
After a long dry spell, I saw two of my favorite musical acts in one week
In 2022 and 2023, I had terrible luck with shows. (Elton John and Bjork canceled on me, and I got COVID the night War on Drugs was in Helsinki and had to give my tickets away). However, I recently saw two of my favorite bands in two countries during a single week. I offer the two recaps on “Why This, Why Now?”
The Clientele at the Lafayette, London, UK – Friday, January 19th, 2024 (8 p.m.)
Capitalizing on the fact that I live in Finland and can travel inside Europe with little or no jetlag, I worked all day in Helsinki, then flew to London Friday evening after work for a weekend junket. Unfortunately, I missed the opening act, the English electronic music duo Ultramarine, due to a late flight departure. But with a few minutes to spare before The Clientele’s headline set, I slid into a spot with a good sightline in the Lafayette’s intimate basement auditorium.
The commute from Finland was worth it for my first London venue experience in over a decade, and it was great to see a long-time favorite band. I’d been a fan since the early 2000s, having binged on their Suburban Light (2000) and Strange Geometry (2005) albums dozens of times and had seen them in 2005 at First Avenue in Minneapolis.
I’ve always associated The Clientele’s sound with London itself, music that is scintillating and nostalgic and feels personalized to my recollections of living in London as a child.
Their 2023 album, “We Are Not There Anymore,” a sprawling and ambitious project with very little filler, made my top ten albums list.
At the second of their London shows, I was rewarded with a set relying heavily on new material, starting with “Claire’s Not Real” from “We Are Not There Anymore” and thirteen other songs from the new record. The informal, casual presentation of otherwise ethereal music is one of the most striking features of The Clientele’s live performances.
The lineup featured drummer Mark Keen, bassist James Hornsey, and cellist Sebastian Millett. Mel Draisey, who had initially joined the band on one of my favorite Clientele records, 2007’s “God Saved the Clientele,” played keyboard and sang backing vocals for several songs toward the set's end. Prettiness aside, this is unpretentious and poetic music. If you have a chance, do see them on this tour.
Full setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-clientele/2024/lafayette-london-england-43aca7df.html
Lloyd Cole at the Savoy Theater, Helsinki, Finland - Wednesday, January 25th, 2024 (8 p.m.)
Lloyd Cole is one of my favorite solo performers. I last saw him perform in 2004, reviewing his Fine Line Show in Minneapolis, USA. (Read that here.)
On the Wednesday of the Helsinki show, Cole was sick with a cold but still put on a two-set plus two encores, where he played a similar list of songs to what he’d played in Sweden a week or so earlier.
It’s hard for me to have anything but love for a show when a musician opens with what is ostensibly my favorite song, “Don’t Look Back,” from Cole’s self-titled 1990 solo release.
Someone captured a video of “Don’t Look Back” in Paris a few months back, which gives you an idea of what we got in Helsinki. It features Cole wearing the same all-white outfit he wore in Helsinki.
Cole is no slouch on acoustic guitar, with accurate and stripped-down arrangements that capture the essence of his songs. These simple performances brought out just how good a songwriter he is. Case in point is the song “Woman in a Bar” from Cole’s 2006 release “Antidepressant,” which, though I had heard it before, became one of my new favorites after hearing this version.
How can you not love a song whose first stanza goes like this?
Idealized vision of a woman through a smoke-filled
Twentieth-century screenplay, advancing
Towards protagonist with paperback and beer
Manifestly failing to disappear.
The song has a chord progression of roughly C G F G, with only an Am added in the bridge; I had to learn it on piano and guitar to experience how simply constructed it is. Writing a song with so much forward momentum and with unexpected emotional impact in a simple couplet is a songwriter’s dream:
“She walks into the bar. And there you are.”
(Read the lyrics here: https://genius.com/Lloyd-cole-woman-in-a-bar-lyrics)
Songs like “Woman in a Bar” illustrate what my favorite solo artists have in common. Lloyd Cole, Robyn Hitchcock, and Elvis Costello are all masters of the English language, with a knowledge of the poetic craft they bring to their music, further elevating the written word with the song's structure. (Bob Dylan and Lou Reed are also in this group but in an earlier generation.)
Speaking of songwriting, Cole shared an anecdote about meeting with a record executive in the early 90s who suggested he used the word “Babe” or “Baby” too often in his songs. Cole replied, “You’re the record company. I’m the songwriter. This conversation is at an end.” Then, he noted that the record company executive had probably been right.
A friend and I assembled the setlist.fm setlist from this show, which you can read here, is full of hidden classics and songs from at least ten different Lloyd Cole albums, which I had heard to greater or lesser degrees. Cole has done a terrific job of curating these setlists. Though slightly weak in voice, it was not bothersome and even felt more intimate. Songs like “Trigger Happy” made me tear up.
For a superfan like me, I was singing along with most of the songs already anyway, so it was great when Cole asked us to help with backing vocals on “The Idiot” (his paeon to Bowie and Iggy’s Berlin days) and the Lloyd Cole and the Commotions song “Jennifer, She Said.” (We did the ba da dada da da parts as he continued the final words of the song, “That’s forever she said, for eh eh eh ever.”
I fell in love with Lloyd Cole’s music when I was a jaded, hard-drinking younger man because the sentiment and abundance of alcohol references in the music appealed to me. Cole’s music has grown and changed with both of us over the years, and he has terrific humility. When he played “Undressed,” he carefully noted, “Please don’t imagine me undressed now, but think of it as 1989.”
Full setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lloyd-cole/2024/savoy-teatteri-helsinki-finland-7bacea6c.html