"Do you notice anything different about me?" asked Liza Minnelli after her third number, sucking in her cheeks and pouting for comic effect. Having recently shed 44 pounds in weight (apparently thanks to a diet program that she had seen advertised on television), the 62-year old diva looked in amazing shape: trim, toned, in radiant good health, and (as we were to discover during the second half) sporting a pair of legs that would have graced a woman half her age.

But it wasn't only Liza's outward appearance which confounded expectations. Not quite knowing what to expect from someone with such a chequered history and such an erratic track record, many of us had come prepared to make allowances for whatever eccentricities might be in store. As it turned out, we had no need to worry at all.

From the first number (a splendid rendition of Teach Me Tonight) to the final encore (a spellbinding I'll Be Seeing You, performed a cappella), Liza was in full control of her voice, her performance and her audience. Every note was hit; every mark was struck; every nuance was attended to.

This was no booze-addled, pill-popping, delusional spent force, hamming it up and trading on past glories. Instead, what we witnessed was a bravura performance from a consummate artiste, miraculously restored to the height of her powers.

As was explained during a recent interview, Liza's preferred interpretive technique is to inhabit a different character for each song: a "method acting breakdown", as she called it. During the first half in particular, we saw this technique in full effect.

For George Gershwin's The Man I Love, Minnelli's lovelorn yearning was underpinned by a self-mocking wryness, as was only appropriate for a woman four times divorced. Taking an opposite stance, I'm Living Alone And I Like It was sung in the character of a feisty old lady dressed from head to toe in maroon, whom the singer had once met on a New York street corner. For My Own Best Friend (from the musical Chicago), Minnelli transformed into Roxie Hart: on trial for murder, and converting her fear into defiance. And for Cabaret, she once again assumed her Oscar-winning role as Sally Bowles in the film of the same name: laughing in the face of misfortune, with a survivor's resolve to continue living life to the full.

The bulk of the show's second half was given over to an extended tribute to Liza's late godmother Kay Thompson: a key figure in the history of Hollywood, who had given vocal coaching to the likes of Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, and Liza's own mother Judy Garland. Given that Thompson is a considerably lesser known figure in this country, this was a section that could easily have flopped. Instead, the lively, full-throttle recreation of her celebrated nightclub act, accompanied by a quartet of song-and-dance boys (The Williams Brothers), swept us up with its sheer energy, successfully evoking the spirit of a lost golden age.

As the two and a half hour show progressed, the standing ovations grew ever more frequent: starting with Maybe This Time in the first half, and climaxing with Minnelli's signature tune New York, New York in the second half. (By this stage, the cheers were erupting even as the song progressed.) Liza rode these waves of adulation in the manner of someone whose stardom is written in their very DNA.

Let there be no doubt about it: this was a truly exceptional show, which will be remembered for years to come by all who witnessed it.

Labels: celebs, eveningpost, gigs, popmusic

Er... blimey!

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An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.


You’re in an interesting position right now, because your side project album [as the Last Shadow Puppets] has topped the album charts before your debut album [with The Rascals] has even come out. When you and Alex Turner [Arctic Monkeys] sat down last year to plan the Last Shadow Puppets project, did you have any idea that it would be this successful?

No, not at all. We wanted to make it because we were enjoying writing tunes together. We didn’t know how it would turn out, and we didn’t even know whether it would get put out. Obviously we’re made up with the success that it’s had. I suppose that I’m lucky to be able to put two records out in the space of a couple of months, which I feel passionate about.

It’s great when artists get the chance to bang some records out in quick succession. We don’t get enough of that.

Yeah, definitely. The Rascals album is darker and rawer. It’s not dead polished, but that’s exactly what we wanted. We needed to get that out of our systems, from being frustrated in our previous band The Little Flames. It’s an album of ideas and experimentation, and I think of it as an album of release.

I’m glad that it’s captured us at those early stages – which no one does, because everything’s so safe, and everyone these days has that one single which gets w**ked all over the radio. We wanted to make a cooler album, that people will look back on and think: wow, they were mad bastards then. I think it’s better in the long run.

Something you have in common with Alex is that you’re very much wordsmiths. Where do you get your lyrical inspiration from?

On this album, I suppose it’s all about things that have happened to me, and taking a dark twist on them. There’s a song on there called People Watching, and I do like that. I like to go to the café, get my little notepad out, gaze out of the window, have a coffee and write down stuff.

A lot of the songs are about girls. Stockings To Suit is about a girl who’s going round a couple of the clubs in Liverpool. She’s a bit of slag and that, but she’s dead fit, and she’s ripping through lads. It’s what a lad would usually be like, shagging loads of birds - but it’s like the other way round. And then she comes down to you, and then you’re like: oh no, I can’t do that! But then she just gets you, and you’re just like: f**k it, I’ll do it – but you get had off by her, sort of thing.

I like the song title Does Your Husband Know That You’re On The Run. There’s a whole drama suggested just in that title, but how could anyone’s husband not know that his wife was on the run?

(Laughs) I was in London, and again I was in a bar/café, just sitting there having some lunch. There were two women chatting next to me, and one was saying (adopts high pitched voice and London accent) “I’ve left my husband, but he doesn’t know. He can’t find me, and he’s been trying to phone all my friends.” I wrote down the title in my book, and took it from there.

The new single Freakbeat Phantom strikes me as another observational song. Who is this character, that’s “psychotic” and “bionic”?

I went to this party once in Liverpool, after a night out, which was going on until five in the morning. It was a bit out of town and I hadn’t been there before; it was a stranger’s house. Everyone was getting off their heads, and I was just watching.

This fella just wandered into the house. He was on crutches, he had a backpack on, and he was just weird. There was obviously something wrong with him. Nobody knew who he was. There was all these people sitting on the table, and he sat down and started telling all these weird tales, trying to freak everyone out.

I was sat at the back, and on my phone I wrote “the freakbeat phantom”, as the name for this character. When I sing “I’m holding on”, it’s because he was doing my head in and I couldn’t get home, but I wanted to be home.

So I wrote that about this character “resting himself on his crutches”, telling “suspicious stories which are fake”. And everyone was laughing at him, so “laughter was going around in a stranger’s house”. It was the story of that night, really.

There’s a song called Fear Invicted Into The Perfect Stranger, where you seem to have invented a new word. I can’t find “invicted” in the dictionary, so what does it mean?

(Laughs) I did make that up! I suppose it should be “inflicted”, but I didn’t want to say “inflicted”. I like “invicted”, as in “put on you”, if you know what I mean.

How do you mean?

Like, the fear’s put on you. Or like, someone’s put the fear on you. Or putting it on you.

Well, when it gets into the Oxford English Dictionary in two years’ time, they’ll cite that as the first usage.

(Laughs) I’m glad you picked up on that!


Musically speaking, there’s a use of echo and tremolo throughout which reminds me of early Sixties guitar pop, just after rock and roll and just before The Beatles. I’m thinking of people like The Shadows, The Ventures, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. Have you taken inspiration from these people, or am I just giving away my age?

As a guitarist, that’s what I’ve always been into. A few years ago, I was shown this fellow called Link Wray. Instead of like doing leads like noodling, his style all kind of slides up, and his sound is all reverb. Once I heard that, I knew that was what I wanted to sound like. I use a lot of whammy bar on my guitar, and I do love that reverb sound. It’s something that I want to do more of.

There’s also something of a cinematic feel, and even a track called Bond Girl. Do you see your songs as miniature movie soundtracks?

I think Freakbeat’s got a bit of a Bond-like chord progression. I love that sound, and I’d love to do a Bond tune one day. I love all the early Bond films, and even the early Steve McQueen films: the look of them, the way they dressed, and the music.

You’ve combined lightness and darkness on the album, I think. There’s humour, and the same time there’s menace. Was that the idea?

Yeah, I think the humour comes out because even though the music is quite dark, we’re so not dark. We’re like three best mates that laugh every day, all day.

I think that a big inspiration, and this is a mad one, was watching a DVD about the making of John Lennon’s Imagine album. It shows him doing a live take of the song Gimme Some Truth, and the way it’s sung is really spat out and venomous.

There’s a song on our album called I’ll Give You Sympathy, which will be our next single. It’s about going out and having bladdered Scouse fellas spitting in your ear and giving you their opinions: Listen lad, what are you doing, being in a band? So the lyrics are “When you spit in my face, you’re wearing yourself out as well as me. All you want is more!” That was definitely inspired by that Lennon tune.

Whereas the Last Shadow Puppets used orchestral overdubs, with The Rascals it’s much more of a live sound. How long did it take to nail the performances?

With some of the newest tunes, like People Watching and The Glorified Collector, we sort of worked them out in the studio. We messed about with the rhythms, and how fast or slow we’d want them to be. So they took longer. People Watching was about twenty-five takes. By the end of it, I was like (makes exhausted heavy breathing noises), and then I had to do all the overdubs and vocals. That was a long day.

Rehearsing that intensely in the studio must really help you develop your chops as a live act.

Yeah, lately I feel like we’ve improved so much. I feel like we’re a proper amazing live band now, in terms of not just bashing out tune after tune. We’ve worked out a set which is dead atmospheric. In certain tunes we jam them out, and then drop them right down to dead quiet playing. It’s a bit like Queens of the Stone Age, if you’ve ever seen them live.

We end on this tune called Is It Too Late, which was on our first EP. At the end, we bring it down to dead silence, and then just the vocal on its own, and then it all comes back in on the last ending. Stuff like that live works so well, and no one does that these days.

Photos of Miles Kane taken at SXSW, March 2008 by The Current Online and littleamandie, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

Here in "Nudding Ham", we've grown used to visiting American acts telling us that we're a "special audience". In the case of veteran hip-hoppers Public Enemy, there's a distinct truth behind the sentiment.

Back in the autumn of 1987, the band played a seminal gig at Rock City, which saw them debuting their classic Bring The Noise to wild -- and unexpected -- acclaim. Two decades later, the same song opened a set which was largely given over to a full reconstruction of their most celebrated album, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back.

With founder member Professor Griff unable to leave the US due to passport problems, Chuck D and Flavor Flav had more work to do than ever. Although the comforts of middle age might have blunted some of their youthful anger (barring the occasional swipe at Bush and Blair, and even a vicious, unrepeatable crack at "Queen Elizabitch" of which Mohammed Al Fayed would have been proud), their energy levels remained impressively high. Riffing off each other in time-honoured fashion -- the preacher and the party animal, the sage and the fool -- their delivery was crisp and sharp, hitting every mark with absolute precision.

This being the last night of the tour, the band invited their production team -- Hank and Keith Shocklee, aka The Bomb Squad -- onto the stage, in order to explain some of the musical thinking behind their groundbreaking masterpiece. Although this broke some of the early momentum, nothing could stop the crowd once Side Two of the album kicked in. (As the Shocklee brothers explained, it was originally conceived as Side One, before a last minute switch was made.)

She Watch Channel Zero got the fists pumping; Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos got us chanting along with its memorable opening lines; and when the delirious squall of Rebel Without A Pause dropped, the venue all but exploded.

The album's final track dispensed with, the band launched into a lengthy greatest hits set, climaxing with a fierce, galvanising Fight The Power. Nearly two and a half hours after taking to the stage, Flavor Flav had to be virtually dragged off it.

Labels: eveningpost, gigs, popmusic