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Pere Ubu
09/15/05
Palace, Brussels
Live Free or Diet : 30 Years of Maximum Avant-Roll
"Pere Ubu shows up on time. We expect everyone else to be on time. No, no... wait, we're not anywhere near that reasonable. Pere Ubu shows up ahead of time. If you show up ON TIME you're already late as far as we're concerned."
On Pere Ubu's website, you'll find heaps of rules, regulations
and conditions like this. If you're going to organize an Ubu-concert, you
know what you're in for. Unfortunately, the band did not show up on time in
Brussels, having the anxious crowd wait in a crowded, overheated bar where
some DJ was playing artsy drones embellished with bird sounds and snare drum
hits and did a pretty good job at giving me a cracking headache with it. I
almost got nauseous, became a lousy companion and feared a completely idiotic,
over the top art-for-art's-sake performance from the legendary cult
band. They may be one of the most idiosyncratic American bands of the past
three decades (they still haven't caught up with their first album),
but they're also rather unpredictable, and chief David Thomas - whose larger-than-life
personality wouldn't fit in any other band - in particular. About two hours
after the front doors went open, the band stepped onto the stage and unleashed
it's 90 minute multi-media opera Live Free or Diet, basically a romp
through their last few albums and a few new (unfamiliar, at least) songs,
while on a huge screen behind 'em accompanying visuals were projected. 
As
a recurring theme in Ubu's universe, a lot of these images involved travelling,
the geography of America (also obvious from several song titles ("Texas Ouverture")
and album titles (Pennsylvania, St Arkansas)), so you'd get passing
houses and landscapes or random objects entering and leaving the frame. On
top of that, there was also some weird black & white footage featuring Cleveland's
horror show host Ghoulardi and some primitive computer animation (set to Thomas'
poem "Fish Shack").
Even though this band hasn't released a half-straightforward album in more than a decade - if anything, the past few albums had them return to the inaccessible experimentation of the late 70s/early 80s albums - the set was surprisingly robust and rocking, often relying on heavy and hypnotising martial rhythms that made Thomas' alarming theatricality only slightly less harmless. Sporting a beard now, the massive singer could easily compete in an Orson Welles look-alike competition, with the crucial difference that the movie director never would've wailed this hysterically. Thomas might have a range that's so limited it's almost non-existent, but somehow the fact that he succeeds in hitting all the notes other vocalists usually miss makes him quite an attraction. Gesticulating intensely while mumbling, howling and yelling his disjointed lyrics, the man's stage presence is quite something to behold, especially when his performance is turned even livelier by throwing empty beer cans around and occasionally screaming at his colleagues. The band delivered a terrific performance though, with perfunctory tribal drumming, an often thunderous bass/guitar-tandem and the analogue keyboards wizardry of Robert Wheeler whose buzzes, bleeps, hisses, whooshes and theremin act gave the show an almost-industrial touch that rendered it old-fashioned and futuristic. The show started off with newer material ("Texas Ouverture," "The Orange Show") and the band gradually worked their way back through their catalogue, picking songs from St Arkansas (a wonderful "Slow Walking Daddy"), Pennsylvania (the enormous riffage of "Woolie Bullie," "Perfume," "Sad.txt" and a stunningly intense "Wheelhouse") and Raygun Suitcase, from which they played "Electricity" and set closer "Folly of Youth," the ideal showcase for Thomas's completely demented vocals at their most far-out. It was theatrical, it probably hurt ears not used to challenging music and it'll never be fit for mass consumption, but Ubu's show was also pure rock & roll, albeit for those willing to make an effort. The performance was probably longer than it should have been - encores "Sonic Reducer," "The Modern Dance" and "We Have the Technology" started to become quite messy - but during its (many) peak moments, Pere Ubu still made you feel you were watching something relevant, something unique and yes, something important.
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