Guy Garvey’s a perfectionist. One of those type of singers whose entire experience of a show can be ruined by missing one single note. When he does that at the end of a particularly taxing and otherwise perfectly angelic song, the disappointment is clear on his face. ‘No worries, mate,’ someone shouts.

There’s bands that make you want to dance, and bands that make you want to shoe gaze, bands that make you angry and bands that make you want to take to the barricades. Elbow’s a band that makes me think of everybody and everything I’ve ever loved in my entire life, family, friends, lovers, entire cities, and make me love them even more.

Throw those curtains wide!

Reading Matthew’s ‘premature evaluation‘ of R.E.M.’s upcoming album Accelerate, I realised I’d never posted my thoughts on the two shows I saw the band do in Dublin last summer. I did write about it on my Dutch music blog, but even fewer people probably read that than visit over here. So here’s a quick translation.

‘This is not a show,’ says Mike Mills, addressing the crowd through a megaphone. It’s not a gig, it’s an ‘exercise in terror and music’, Stipe explains, ‘We are R.E.M. and this is what we do when you’re not looking.’

But this time we are looking. Stipe may not be wearing make up and he may be cheating with the lyrics, using printed sheets and a MacBook on an upturned flight case, it’s still R.E.M. on stage: the three members of the band, guest guitarist Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin.

We are in Dublin’s beautiful Olympia Theatre, a small Victorian venue in the middle of the city. This is the location R.E.M. has picked for five nights, trying out the songs they are recording with producer Jacknife Lee in a studio in county West-Meath.

It’s not the first time R.E.M. has picked an Irish studio to record in. ‘Uncle’ Stipe has godchildren in this country, he’s part the U2 family in the broadest sense of the word. It’s like the mafia, once you’re in, you’re in for life.

Bono and The Edge are present at the first two shows of the five night run. Stipe thanks them from the stage, for their support and ‘for keeping me grounded’. The band’s real relatives have flown in too. On the fourth night, Stipe is telling the audience a story and when he uses the word ‘blowjob’ he suddenly buries his bright red face in his hands. ‘I forgot we’ve got family members in tonight, young ones too… well, if you didn’t know that word before…’

He’s very talkative in between the songs. They play eleven new tracks every night as well as various oldies from their first couple of albums. They fit in with the new songs the best. For the first time, Stipe explains his obscure lyrics, telling us what the stories are about and shedding light on the art of songwriting. On the third night the old songs are mostly off Fables of the Reconstruction, on the fourth it’s even further back to Chronic Town, Murmur and Reckoning.

The tickets to these shows were exclusively sold via R.E.M.s mailing list, so the people in the audience are mostly big fans, hearts ready to burst. No hits. It’s the dream of every super fan. ‘I hadn’t heard this song in 24 years until this afternoon,’ Stipe says, holding the lyrics in his hands. We savour obscure tracks like West of the Fields, Wolves Lower, Carnival of Sorts, 1000000, Harborcoat, Second Guessing and These days.

The new songs work well in the live setting, sounding like vintage R.E.M. already, with added power courtesy of Bill Rieflin’s power drumming. In ‘Horse to water’ you feel the fire of Gravity’s Pull, and the ballad ‘Until the Day is Done’ is a gorgeous ‘King of Birds’-type ballad. The band was hurt by the slating their last album Around the Sun got in the press and determined to strike back. The songs aren’t finished yet, that much is obvious when Stipe changes lyrics on his MacBook in our presence, or when guitarist Peter Buck stops a song to explain the middle eight to bass player Mike Mills. But they’re getting there.

The band sounds great, a full rich sound, crystal clear even on the upper balcony of the venue. U2′s sound engineer of the last 30 years, Joe O’Herlihy, is manning the soundboard, doing a great job. Whether the band has managed to capture that sound on record, we’ll find out in April.

‘We had to send it back, it wasn’t right.’

Poor piggie. Murdered to death and then discarded.

I try my luck at the butcher on the other side of the road. Inside, it’s like going back to the very early 70s. Knorr products on the shelves, the packaging bleached by the sun, sparse cuts of pale meat on show. A little dusty. Very open air museum. This is the Holland you want to forget.

The butcher looks more like a penny-saving grocer. Protestant and painfully repressed. One manky eye looks sideways, while the other stares straight ahead. He helps another client, taking his time. I’m in no hurry, so I wait while he makes their cut meat sandwiches. Finally, they’re done.

“Do you have any pork belly?” I ask.

“I do,” he says and makes for the storage room, then returns. “You’re going to make babi pangang, aren’t you?”

Balls. He’s cut the skin off. I’m not making the chinese roast pork dish he’s referring too, but I do need the meat uncut for my epaisse tranche de lard dans son jus. Should I slap his wrist for assuming an Asian-looking woman must be cooking Chinese food?

“I’ve cut the skin off, you see.”

I see.

“I cut the skin off the minute I get it in, before I store it,” he says in a way that there’s no mistaking… cutting the skin off is. the. right. thing. to do.

Oh.

“You have a better chance finding some at the Albert Cuyp market. The butchers there…” he sniffs, “I call them dirty butchers.”

I smile thinly and thank him. He’s sorry I had to wait so long. I’m sorry I ever met him.

“I can’t do it with HER here,” she says and I turn around.

She is laid out on a silver plate. Her hair is done up and wrapped in a black nylon balaclava like the queen in Disney’s Snow White. Her neck is Modigliani-long. From the shoulders down she is… fish. Sashimi. Glittering cuts of silver and blue herring.

I wake up.

what do you think it all means?
ModSue – 17 February 2005 – 22:49

I think it means I had a fever. :)
Caroline (link) – 17 February 2005 – 23:27

Is the recipe secret? ‘No, I’ve got it on a piece of paper,’ she says, with serious intent. The same recipe for the last 30 years, involving carrots and sultanas and many other things. Whiskey, of course. Just a drop.

It isn’t ‘ripe’ yet, still a little soggy at the top, but Mrs Lynch tells the husband to serve us slices. ‘We’re out of cream,’ she says, despairing. But it tastes heavenly regardless. ‘You don’t have to eat it,’ she adds, almost incredulous we should eat her sticky black concoction. But we want to. Oh, we want to.

She stands on the porch as the husband drives us to the bus stop, in the freezing cold and forgets to wave, her mind already caught on other things. Like the neighbours’ daughter, who she used to mind, who now has a little wan herself. She’s in and out the door and regards Mrs Lynch’s front room her own. Didn’t they buy the DVD player when the little wagon said they should so she could player her Disney DVDs in it? They did.

We thank her for her kindness and the tea, fish and chips and buttered slices of bread, the biscuits and the cider and washing up when we said to leave it. But it’s no bother, didn’t the husband do the cooking?

So he did.

It’s been a while, a week, or more, or less. My head’s been killing me and my shoulders ache in sync. I got a signal outside, he says. How are ya? OK, I say and pause. Continue: moody, up and down like usual.

He says I need a break. I know, I say. I’ve got one coming up in August.

What are my plans, he wants to know. I stretch out on the sofa and listen to his footsteps and the wind blowing as he walks the road to Mizen head. Any further out West and he’d be in Americay.

Marseille, ’cause I like harbours, I proclaim, or maybe Nice, the flights are cheaper. I don’t know and I’ve no money either. It’s tough on your own, I confess.

That’s life, baby.

I remember Mizen head and the journey home — how that man and I listened to the radio as they took Diana to Westminster Abbey. That was the end of that, the golden girl and our tryst laid to rest in one sad week.

Take a train, he says, like he’s read my mind. Like he always does. (“Why don’t you move to Amsterdam?”) I might just do that. Take a train. Travel.

There’s no train to Mizen head.

We hurtle down the M2 to Whitstable on the North Kent coast. Two women falling asleep in the sun, Mr Hg behind the wheel. Will we make it in time for the table at noon?

17 degrees according to the sign on the rent-a-boat building, but it feels warmer. Upstairs in the restaurant’s a cinema — but the seats are stacked with boxes and the first floor is under construction. More seats for hungry customers.

A waiter cleans lobster at the bar. Outside on the beach kids play with the waves while daddies strap their bellies in a wet suit. Their grown up toys are catamarans, jet skis and motorboats. The need for speed. Where are their wives?

Steaming mussels, baked cod, Sancerre. Mr Hg laughs when I take a first bite of my pudding and light up like a four-year-old.

We buy sweets and books.

Some photos of Whitstable

“I’m writing, not bleeding,” he chuckles, “you know what I mean?”

I do. I see a boy hunched over a table, clutching a pen, pressing meaning on paper. Tip of the tongue between the teeth, tasting air. I think back on a summer en Provence, the dry heat, cool swim, scorched earth, lemon ice cream type of holiday. The two images don’t blend.

“You’re taller, better looking and you’ve got better hair,” I say. Smooth as butter and mostly true.

“Absolutely,” he says.

Mistral winds, purple hues of lavender. Pitching your tent in the middle of the arid, scratchy bushes of wild oregano and sariette. Eyeing French lads, two per moped.

He’s sucking on his cigarette, tiny, tiny sounds of satisfaction. The butt so small the fingers touch the lips.

Insists I should swim. But my skin rebels. “There’s cream,” he says, “for when you get a rash… ”

I’m sure there is.

“… she used to get them after swimming. Get that.”

Too much information. I hear water, a single splash. Must be the pool. Lying on a lounger, drinks ‘n’ sweets. Factor 40 and a hat. Twenty tens nearby.

We used to do the shopping before noon, markets were like heaven. Heaps of swollen pomodores, capped tanned weathered fishermen offering glistening shell food. Olives and pistachios. We’d drink wine from glass Danone yoghurt cups and cook pasta à la camping gaz.

He’ll never know the mouldy rubbery smell of our ancient canvas tent, the gentle tap tap tap on rainy days. Not there, not swimming in the sound, not living in a rich man’s world.

“Talk soon. Bye bye.”

Days pass, the smells and sounds remain. The single splash resounds. Again. Again.

And then it dawns. The quiet hollow slap of water and flesh reflected between tub and tiles.

The smile on my face is so wide my eyes start to tear.

The little girl, all pre-Raphaelite features and messy blonde curls, has shown me her latest games. Hoola hoop. She wants me to try it but I say I’m too old.

I am. Too old to learn about kids.

“Jesus broke his willie!” she shouts. I feign horror.

This little one likes me, draws me pictures, and holds Jesus in front of me. “Do you want Jesus on your head,” she says, and I break up laughing. “No, thanks,” I say, “I have him in my heart.” A great big lie. I’ll burn in hell for it.

Her mother puts her to bed, but she returns to the living room a few times, clutching more and more stuffed animals to her chest. Finally, she picks up the crucifix.

“French people… French people pray like this,” she says, going down on one knee, her hands devoutly clasped together. Her mother explains about God, Allah, Buddha, different ways to pray and it’s way past bed time. She takes it all in.

Later, we hear her talking in her bedroom. She’s putting her treasures to bed.

“Don’t worry, Jesus,” she says, “I’ll get those nails out for you.”