Lou Barlow

Taking time out of the mammoth tour to support the reformation of seminal indierock giants Dinosaur Jr, Lou Barlow has squeezed in a few small gigs of his own, to support his recently released and criminally under looked 'EMOH' album. But before we get to old Lou, let me just mention the band he had to follow. Nic Armstrong and the Thieves. My god. I thought I’d seen some posers in my time, but this lot took the biscuit. Spinal Tap, if the tap were based on the Backbeat Beatles. Very musically proficient, (sterile!). This lot would be great at any wedding reception or bar mitzvah. But on a stage in a cool little club, abysmal. It has been a long while since a band has made me physically shake with laughter, but this lot did. Well, to be precise, the bass player did. He looked like Dave Grohl, if Grohl had been dropped on his head as a child! He was the funniest thing of the set, bobbing around, spittle flying on his tache, kicking the air like he was a missing Ramone, but coming across as a missing link between Neanderthal man and Les from the League of Gentlemen's 'Crème Brule'.

Loobie on the other hand, well.......... One Stool and an acoustic guitar is always a prospect that, as a fan of grinding noise, bothers me. But you can't deny that Lou Barlow is a master of the gentle, bittersweet, acoustic song. And for this, he's criminally ignored. Yet of the many tracks played tonight, new tracks written exclusively for the tour, along with tracks from EMOH, stood up as good as the oldies from the Sebadoh days such as 'Skull', and 'Soul and Fire'. Lou had the crowd eating from the palm of his hand with his technical fuck ups, rambling monologues and his, at times, ramshackle guitar work.

So where the Thieves tried their hardest to make their music be as cool as possible, they just didn't cut it, they were cold and stale with a huge air of desperation hanging over their set, screaming volumes with the end of each track, something the audience weren't. Nope, to win over an audience you need to have a passion for your art, a disregard for fashion-media, and a whole heap of good tunes. Lou Barlow has all of these, and long may he do so.