Seeing the phrase “playing the [whatever] album in its entirety” under an artist’s name on a venue website usually sets off my wrinkled-nose reflex. Five years ago, it was a novel idea and a great excuse to see long dormant bands like Slint come from out of hiding for a rare performance. Since then, it’s become an oft-played trope proving that anyone can cash in using the nostalgia card.
So, seeing that phrase, “playing The Tyranny of Distance in its entirety” on the Black Cat website under a very active touring and recording artist like Ted Leo initially felt jarring. He is the last person who needs to pull what is usually a cash-grab move.
That’s because his performances of that 2001 album at the Black Cat on Friday and Sunday was not so much a cash-in as a high school reunion. It was the final performance of this album after a year of having celebrated its release with a slew of blog posts and a few isolated New York performances of the disc. This was a celebration of an album that helped shape his ensuing musical direction amongst all the people who made that possible. The energy at the Black Cat was nothing if not celebratory.
Leo noticed the electric energy of the crowd very early on. By the time he had finished a mini-set of live staples from the four following albums and gotten to what he had called, “The point,” he commented that the audience was very polite. He cited that everyone knew that the stop in set opener “The Mighty Sparrow” wasn’t the end of the song, expressing shock that nobody used the stop as an applause break.
Admittedly, most of the songs from The Tyranny of Distance are live staples in and of themselves. This may have been the first time in recent memory that “Timorous Me” was anything besides an encore, but anyone who has been to Ted Leo shows in the past few years has probably gotten a healthy helping of “Biomusicology” and “Under the Hedge.” Still, seeing the tracks that he rarely pulls out like, “St. John the Divine,” “My Vien iLin” and “Stove By A Whale” felt like a treat, especially since “Whale” is usually accompanied by impassioned dancing from Leo.
In fact, all three of the standing Pharmacists (including bassist Marty Key who stopped touring with the band in 2010) lunged into their instruments with extra weight, fully aware of the roving cameramen attempting to remain unobtrusive. In fact, the band had to go launch into an extended dissonant jam session as Leo changed his string in the middle of “Dial Up.”
It was the first of two strings that Leo broke over the course of the show. During a new song that he introduced in the encore after “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?”, he ripped out another weak string, mid-song. Then, quoting the famous Bill O’Reilly viral clip, he refused a new guitar, joking, “We’ll do it live!” and threw himself across the stage and into the crowd for “Ballad of the Sin Eater,” a song we haven’t seen since the birthday boy in attendance, Chris Richards, opened for him.
However, even after “the point” had been made, camera crew head Brendan Canty (who also produced Tyranny of Distance had been thanked and the audience’s collective face had been rocked off, the crowd screamed for several minutes for one of those genuine unplanned encores. “You guys are insane,” Leo said as he took his bandmate James Canty’s guitar for a cover of Richard Thompson’s “Beat the Retreat.” Insane may be an apt description but what would a celebration be without some insanity?
