The Wedding Present @ the Black Cat

To John Scheinman and Tom Mullins

So, herewith and without further delay, is the promised recap of the gig by my beloved Weddoes a few sundays ago at Black Cat.

The touring band is Gedge, original WP guitarist Simon Cleave (who collaborated on Take Fountain, the new record), Cinerama bassist Terry DeCastro and a young fellow named John Maiden on drums who is new to the band because Kaari Paavola, who drummed for Cinerama, didn't want to tour that long. They opened with "Interstate 5," the thrumming 8-minute single from the new record. (They're selling souvenir buttons in the shape of an interstate highway sign.) The show surveyed much of their catalog; the other Take Fountain tunes they played were the pounding "It's For You," which I have already come to love, "Queen Anne" near the top, "Ringway to Seatac" near the end, and "I'm From Further North Than You," Gedge's great breakup song, whose cheeky chorus goes:

Yes, we're the same, in many ways
And I admit we had some memorable days...
But just not very many.

Regrettably for me the only song they played from Hit Parade 1 was "Go-Go Dancer." I had this fantasy they might play "Come Play With Me," a favorite of mine, and I had half a mind to shout it out -- even though I know that Gedge, being a severe-minded sort on stage, never takes requests and seems to find them rude, along with almost anything else that fans yell at him. That night was no different; he was pleased to have a good crowd and said the turnout at the Black Cat was better than in New York, and bantered a bit with people, but always with a mix of amusement and befuddlement. At one point, when one very enthusiastic person continued to shout things at the stage, a slightly irritated Gedge listened then cut him off with, "Right, so we've had that bit, and this is where I do the introducing-the-next song thing."

From Watusi they played "Spangle. They played a Cinerama song, "Health & Efficiency." From Hit Parade 2 they bypassed their usual choice from that album, "Flying Saucer," and played "Queen of Outer Space," which I've never heard on tour. They got an excellent workout with two top-flight songs from Seamonsters: "Dare" and "Dalliance." Dare is another of my favorites, and Dalliance gave Gedge and Cleave the chance to engage in a prolonged high-speed strum-off at the end, something they repeated with a few other songs, in a show that was very often very loud and furious, with Terry flailing her hair back and forth while she played. Gedge is definitely working something out of his system on the tour; I guess it has something to do with breaking up with Sally Murrell after 14 years. That must hurt like hell, but if that was what moved him to reassemble the Wedding Present after eight years, well -- bad for him, good for us.

They reached back into the very early stuff to play their second single from the '80s, "Once More," which I hadn't even heard before, and a song from George Best, I think -- maybe "My Favourite Dress"? I don't have that record either. They pleased the crowd with a raucous version of "Kennedy" from Bizarro, a song familiar to any WP veteran (and the crowd included many of them). Gedge definitely wanted to sample the whole discography: they played "Drive" from Mini, and "Venus" from Saturnalia, which is perhaps not what I'd have chosen from that underrated record (in their the last Cinerama show at the same club they played "Kansas" and "Montreal" from Saturnalia, and both sounded great then).

I was worried Christina wouldn't enjoy it but we both arrived well lubricated and she had a great time, pushing us up near the front and dancing to the fast tunes. After the show I chatted with Gedge a bit, got a singles/B-sides CD I hadn't seen before, and... yes.. a T-shirt. I couldn't restrain myself, quivering fanboy that I am. He's a comics reader and gets a stack of comics from Greg at Big Planet in Georgetown whenever they roll through D.C., so we talked a bit about new stuff. And then C. I wandered off into the night.