Thanks
to Tim Cornwall
Snipe (fanzine) No. 1 May 1985
Concert Review - The Triffids - University of London Union.
There are always at least a couple of disadvantages about student union gigs. Firstly, they invariably book truly dreadful support bands and allow them to play for far too long. First up tonight were Manticide, almost certainly a student band, who sounded like they'd been listening to loads and loads of Fall records, and hadn't learned anything from any of them. But even worse was to follow in the shape of The Opposition, who are obviously desperate to be the new U2, and are so awful that they probably will be.
The second major disadvantage is that there are always plenty of people there who like to go to the Union every Friday night, get as drunk as they can and, if possible, start a minor ruck at the front. More to the point, they wouldn't know a Triffid from a Bluebell. The Triffids themselves, though, more than made up for these inevitable drawbacks.
Despite having travelled back from Belgium the very same day, they played a long and exuberant set, featuring plenty of stuff from both the albums, but also several numbers that were new, at least to a British audience. It was suprising to me, and apparently also to them, how many people there obviously knew the older songs, certainly in contrast to the last time they were here when they played to enthusiastic, but pretty thin crowds.
On the whole they reproduced the album versions of the songs quite faithfully, but they did have the extra edge that should come with a good live performance, and the very sight of lead singer David McComb in full cry is enough to give any mildly cutting song a real sense of threat. Lanky and gaunt, with enough hair to hide a football under, his appearance is in total sympathy with the haunting, almost macabre music that they play. By contrast, the rest of the band are positively mundane, definitely playing supporting roles, but not to the extent that McComb comes across as a prima donna, or anything like that. They clearly enjoy playing live, and they do it a lot, but they're certainly not stale, the performance went on for nearly two hours without dragging in the slightest.
Inevitably, the highlights were 'Beautiful Waste', despite the unavoidable absence of the brass section used on the record, and 'Raining Pleasure', the only song where Jill, the keyboard player, takes over the vocals. She is about half the height of David McComb and stands straight and unmoving in front of the microphone, hands folded, but when she sings, well, the voice is all you need, and that particular song is the perfect vehicle. The very last number was a brand new one, 'Stolen Property', introduced as, "perhaps the best we've ever written." Well, it's got some pretty stiff competition, but it was certainly impressive, moving even, and judging by all the new material, we haven't heard the last of The Triffids by a long way. Having negotiated the students again on the way out, there was time to reflect that, for all their sham, it might prove to have been a genuinely significant occasion. Probably not really, but you can dream can't you?