Tortoise – The Garage, London 25/08/09

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Photography by Valerio Berdini

I hadn’t been to the Garage in years, that misbegotten charnel pit, dizzy at the top of Upper Street in Islington. I’d seen Neurosis here once – during the times of the IRA bombings – and on route to the venue had been manhandled by a stern copper with a gun; I’d also been deafened by the mighty Six by Seven here, who somehow suited the scuzz and dirt of the venue. My last visit must have been in 1995 or something – to see a buzz band Truly, out of Seattle. They came on, were beset by technical difficulties and left after 20 minutes. Tonight, in late evening heat, Tortoise arrive and immediately breakdown – Jeff Parker’s guitar refusing to cooperate. They fiddle and prod for the best part of 10 minutes. ‘I’m jinxed’, I think…

I’d not heard Pivot before tonight – an Australian 3 piece on Warp, who made a gorgeous racket, that was equal parts post-rock poise, Boards of Canada’s stuttering beats and a melodic sense that reeked of Eno. For a 3 piece they sounded wide – the sound as it built creating a strangely horizontal wash that moved outwards from the stage and gradually filled the room. The band’s drummer, Laurence Pike, was a huge presence and any other night would have walked off with the plaudits – except when you’re supporting Tortoise you’ve got not 1 but 3 other drummers to contend with…

It started well: ‘Prepare Your Coffin’ a wall of precision future-funk. Then Parker’s guitar started playing up. We stood in our clammy aeroplane-skin under great downdraughts of conditioned air as Tortoise noodled and poked at their faulty equipment; and from here it was like watching them through a glass wall in their studio. Or they looked alarmingly like a bunch of dads in their (ahem) garage. It’s easy to forget just how long the band have been around, and that they’re now starting to age – albeit gracefully: Doug McCombs, walrus mustachioed, pate gleaming in the blue light; John McEntire and Dan Bitney greying and balding; John Herndon, despite his hulk, having a ghost of a middle age spread…; only Jeff Parker looked barely a day over 25. His equipment however, tonight at least is positively geriatric.

Thankfully the band get it sorted, but through ‘Gigantes’ and ‘High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In’ (especially the extended thud of the coda) there is still a gap in the sound and it isn’t until another break for running repairs (with Parker looking less and less happy with things by the minute) and the calmer ‘The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls’ that the band really settle. ‘Swung From the Gutters’ from TNT is given greater belly live, McCombs’ bass like a predatory beast. On ‘Monica’ too, with McEntire and Bitney crashing at the two drum kits at centre front of the stage, they are like a lumbering megatherium, a many limbed rhythmical beast.

The visuals made total sense in context too – a series of sweeping shots of building fronts, glass glinting in the sun, arms and elbows of bridge architecture, bone white against the sky. Tortoise give the impression of being an improv band but their sound is meticulously arranged and pieced together, hence the neuroses about the equipment, and hence the architectural presence of their live sound. They bruise for sure, but with elegance. As such, ‘Dot/Eyes’ (from It’s All Around You) is a clanging, flailing thing – and probably the closest they come to genuine dissonance – but it’s all immaculately constructed and delivered. Not to mention mesmerising. That they follow it up with ‘Crest’ one of their more plangent and sonorous songs says so much about what the band are still capable of.

I clamber to the front for the encore – a thrash through ‘Yinxianghechengqi’, the southern noir of ‘I Set My Face to the Hillside’ the chop and swirl of ‘Salt the Skies’ - and up close, through the gleam of the twin drum kits, the intricacies stand out sharp and clear – instead of a lumbering rhythmic beast, they become almost machinic, clinical and shard-sharp. Herndon hunched over one of the two vibraphones, Bitney stately over a bank of keyboards. And by this stage, Parker has obviously recovered his sound as there is a great broad fuzz that had so been missing earlier on.

By the time ‘Seneca’ has come and gone, a towering thing, and the band – smiling now – have exited stage right, we’re mostly punch drunk. All talk of age is useless – up there is a bunch of kids having the time of their lives and making some of the most vital music anywhere in the world right now.