There’s always a question over whether a gig review should spend too much time on setting the scene before the gig; the travail of travel, the pleasure (or otherwise) of the weather, the detail of the venue: how much before we feel like we’re in a travelogue rather than a gig review? Well, whether this should be here or not, suffice to say that it was a bare miracle of fortunate spontaneity that allowed this review to happen at all. Were it not for the idea to head into Central London a few hours early, perhaps cruise some bookshops, maybe score some Simenon or Vonnegut or at the least a decent cappuccino, then there would have been no way that the hordes of football supporters crowding the streets and preventing buses and tubes alike from being accessible could have been overcome. There was, thankfully, just enough time to undertake a Tolkien-esque walking quest to allow for arrival, just in time, at that haven of culture that is The Barbican Centre. But no cappuccino, neither decent nor barely adequate.
This was the third and final night of Aldous Harding’s residency at The Barbican; part of a larger UK, EU and Scandinavia tour that the New Zealander was undertaking, and it was pretty close to full when Aldous Harding took the stage. She has a newly released album, Train On The Island, and the gig would be shaped predominantly around this, with the very occasional shouted song requests mostly going ignored unless they coincided with the fixed set list.
The stage promised a full band sound – drums, bass, guitars and various keyboards, as well as the promise at some point of a harp. There’s also quite intricate lighting; floor-level tubes laying a geometric pattern around the band, and as the night went on, a variety of spots which focused at times on Harding, pushing the band into shadows and, memorably, a series of bright beams from ceiling to floor hinting at a cage during If Lady Does It.
Aldous Harding took the stage for the opening song – the album’s slow earworm of a title track, which addresses, it seems, Harding’s difficulty with connecting with some emotional states: “I hate my perception / But the medication slows my mind“, she sang whilst moving as if doing a particularly slow tai-chi exercise. And when she speaks, it’s to inform us that “You’re getting together with friends“, and maybe we are, with this song and this invitation we’re taken into Aldous Harding’s worldview.
Moving to a seat and deploying the first of many different percussive shakers for I Ate The Most, there is a slow revelation, over an insistent beat, of what would appear to be intimate details of binge eating, medication issues and difficulties with connections, starkly declaring “I’m not afraid like you’re not gay.” It’s like a deconstructed song in its sparse arrangement. Aldous Harding though, despite the heavy thoughts of the opening songs appeared to be relaxed and happy – smiling, occasionally waving, although as the evening continued and each such spontaneous demonstration of pleasure was followed by a questioning “hmm?” there was just a thought that we were being toyed with, which wasn’t dissipated by one of the between song lines “Do you wish there would be a few more quips from me? And, of course, Riding that Symbol, which appeared in the encore, has the line “I’m sending you up this time“, which also could have more than one meaning.
One Stop leant into a funkier mood as it progressed, and it transpired that the word for this evening is probably going to be “funky“, as Harding blends her Sensual World Kate Bush vocals with a band steering towards Golden Brown era Stranglers. There’s such a richness to the variety of Harding’s music; the deeply folky Treasure from her debut album invites the listener in to really focus on the lyrics, and offering the challenge of deciphering them that is surely one major part of her attraction to the completely focused and attentive audience. And at times she can sound like the nearest thing we’ll get to experiencing a post-LSD burn-out Syd Barrett, so woozy and distracted are her lyrics and singing, coupled to intricate finger-picked acoustic guitar playing.
Worms is another beautiful mystery; it sounds a little like Lay Lady Lay drenched in pedal steel, and its lyrics speak of “saving myself by eating rocks and plants“, which might be a description of survival through desperate measures, or just as easily could be a vegetarian (as Harding is) who swallows vitamin supplements. It’s so easy to dive for the extreme when a poetic normality could be what we’re encountering. What exactly the empathy implied by “I pray for the incel” should be taken to mean is also open to debate; that they grow-up and swear-off their misogyny? That as a self-declared outsider Aldous Harding understands their social disconnect? Or, and this is just as likely, something else. Aldous Harding is an embodiment of Churchill’s “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma“, but it’s worth remembering that the quote goes on “perhaps there is a key.” There may be, but as the Magic 8 Ball is fond of saying, “Concentrate and ask again“.
There’s more clarity on the, yes, funky, Leathery Whip, which allows Aldous Harding to indulge her penchant for off-kilter vocals, including childlike squawking and the whipped vocal aside “No Way” when she dismisses the routine offerings of society that don’t offer her the things she wants, or needs. It’s another song that allows the band a little more leeway to show off their chops, and falls into that more funky mood, as does the story of a brief love affair in Fever and the distracted and confusing advice of Coats. Perhaps the most upbeat song of the night, What Am I Gonna Do also saw the keyboard player doubling up on the harp, occasionally reaching out and adding a keyboard part as well. Typically, to undo that uptempo feel, it has an almost spoken middle section which is just pure despair: “what am I gonna do if I can’t break out of it ?/ what am I gonna do if they can’t train me out of it?” delivered in a voice that has Harding regressing to a childlike state.
The three-song encore started with a solo performance of Riding That Symbol that takes Aldous Harding right back to that breakthrough acoustic folk – it’s a lovely confessional, with the stark statement “It’s Only Me” as an explanation of her art. And the equally lovely Imaging My Man with the band is another throwback to less opaque lyrics, but which can now have second or third meaning projected onto them. Oh, Aldous Harding demands some intellectual work to understand the emotional world that spins around and within her. Did we mention that tonight had a strong funky groove through it? Well, closer Designer fed into that mood, leaving the audience to still gently boogie whilst delivering their standing ovation.
Opening the evening had been fellow New Zealand artist Vera Ellen, and that’s both the lead singer and the band’s name. Wisely a pretty regular support band had been chosen for this tour; here’s a four piece of drums, bass, keyboards and lead guitar with a singer with a penchant for emotive delivery of lyrics contending mostly with the difficulties of traversing a romantic social scene; she can be quite stinging on occasion: “you don’t want love, you just want to be right” might have rung familiar with more than one person in the Barbican Hall that night.
She’s not just a rock band leader, though; Broadway Junction is a huge ballad which has escaped from a musical, and has Ellen singing scathingly about how “everything I touch turns to shit.” It’s powerful stuff and made for a more-than-decent opening half-hour.
