Great show, stroppy guitarist.
Have you ever been to an astonishingly excellent rock concert, only to have the lead guitarist manage to almost completely spoil everything within the last two minutes of the performance?
No? You poor soul.
Let me tell you about one.
Re-appearing on the stage after their duo around half an hour before, Mark Lanegan and guitarist Nick Oliveri strut onstage with the rest of their band and launch into their set. It starts slowly, with a couple of basic rock songs contributing to a mildly disappointing introduction. However, within ten minutes, it's all kicked off and Lanegan and his band are playing the kind of mildly experimental, psychedelic guitar music they are renowned for. Onstage for just over an hour, the Lanegan Band put on a 13/13 show, hampered only slightly by a couple of technical hitches here and there.
During the final song of the encore, a new version of the Screaming Trees' classic 'Gospel Plough', Mark Lanegan rasps "Thank you, Leeds, goodnight," and wanders offstage while the rest of the band finish the song. Extended for a further few minutes, it makes for a great exit, and as the final chords of the piece resonate around a packed Cockpit, the band take off their instruments, content after a blinding performance.
Except for lead guitarist Brett Netson, who starts strumming a completely out-of-place guitar riff and singing into a microphone that has long been switched off. A couple of confused glances between band members as they pick up their instruments again, and the band are playing once more, rounding off an exceptional set with something quite bizarre. When it's finally over, the bass player grabs Netson by the shirt and shouts something in his ear.
Here's all I can think: the sound engineer seemed to have been messing around with the guitar levels all night, never quite finding the perfect volume for the solos. Halfway through, in a string-breaking incident, the road crew took entirely too long to hand on a replacement guitar, and when they did it was horribly out of tune. All I can imagine is that Neston had become completely despondent with the whole show - a shame since, from the audience's point of view, the Lanegan Band was on an absolute roll.
It's a twelve. And they're lucky. But in another, far more accurate way, they deserve it. Other than the slight technical hiccups, and a moody guitar player, the whole show was spot on. Catch the Lanegan Band on a more smoothly-running night for a sublime example of how to deliver some good rock music.