Sometimes It Hurts - Tindersticks

Before the curtain rose and the Tindersticks came on stage, I had an entirely serious conversation with one of the security guards at the Henry Fonda Theatre about how easy his job would be that night—a half-capacity crowd of NPR listeners seated in gray plastic chairs didn't present much of a security risk. And it wasn't as if the band would incite any riotous behavior. Tindersticks have been playing slow-core since before people started using 'core' as a suffix to create questionable musical genres.

For most of the show, we were right. The crowd's deference to the band gave way to silence between songs, broken only by the occasional drink sale at the bar.

And then it happened: During perhaps the quietest part of the quietest song of the show, an elderly Asian man in a red vest started yelling at his girlfriend. Drunk, he got up from his seat and started jogging down the center aisle, still yelling, and began to dance in front of two security guards.

As the guards ushered him towards the back of the theatre, the man's girlfriend came to the center aisle, and started to dance behind him. As he was dragged towards the front door, she flashed her breasts at the band. The Tindersticks didn’t seem to notice.

At the front of the theatre, you could hear her boyfriend yelling at the guards, saying he just wanted to find his girlfriend so they could leave together, quietly. The guards, in full faith, let the man back into the theatre unaccompanied. He paused at the bar for a breath or two and then started yelling once again, this time he was nonsensical and loud enough for the band to skip a beat.

Within seconds, another man at the bar, a balding man in a blazer, perhaps an NPR listener himself, decided he had enough—and proceeded to take him the fuck out. A combination of a fist to the face and a Street-Fighter-style sweep kick brought the loud man to the ground, where he was quickly surrounded by a gang of other quiet scarf-wearers, eager to work out their repressed anger. Once more, the loud man was dragged out of the theatre, this time for good.

Unfortunately, this was the most thrilling part of the show.

I understand Tindersticks' urge to tour completely on a new album. But The Hungry Saw, their first release in three years, is a real downer, even compared to their other downers. Perhaps fan favorites like ‘Tiny Tears’ or ‘Bathtime’ were left off the list in deference to the three band members who’ve left Tindersticks. The full orchestra the band toured with in the 90s has been trimmed to what lead singer Stuart Staples termed a 'semi-orchestra', though the only strings I could spot belonged to an upright bass. The final song of the night, their big closing number before an already-assured standing ovation, was ‘My Sister,’ an eight-minute spoken word ball of misery.

That's not to say the concert wasn't good. Staples could call out numbers at the DMV and it would sound sonorous and intimate—and I'm not saying that touring bands have an obligation to play their greatest hits. I just think that if you happen to be in a band with such a catalogue of absolute barn burners—songs that would very quickly turn a half-full seated show into a rock concert—maybe you should, you know, play them. Perhaps then, you couldn't be overshadowed by a quiet riot and a pair of tits.

Originally in Los Angeles Magazine