Yo La Tengo, London Roundhouse
Yo La Tengo
November 8th 2009
At one point during Yo La Tengo’s mammoth, celebratory two-hour set at the Roundhouse in Camden, Ira Kaplan mentioned that the band had been together for a “very, very long time” – it’s been around twenty years, in fact, and the trio’s quiet focus, mostly understated energy and, at times, ferocious power pointed to a band enjoying many of the benefits of (relative) old age and none of the drawbacks. Songs from their occasionally stunning current record, Popular Songs, were intermingled with fan favourites and classics in a set that was confidently paced and emphasised the range and depth of the band’s song-writing over their career.
So it was a fan-friendly set then, but this being Yo La Tengo, it was very much fan-friendly on their own terms. The night started quietly with Electr-O-Pura’s ‘My Heart’s Reflection’ and the epic ‘More Stars Than There Are In Heaven’ – neither were obvious show-starters, and as a result the crowd took a little while to warm up, while the band themselves seemed a little tense. This was understandable – the Roundhouse is a tall, vast venue that can swallow a band up if they aren’t on the top of their game.
Strangely enough, the band showed signs of relaxing into the set with ‘Periodically Triple or Double’, one of the standouts from Popular Songs. Built on just the rhythm section and an organ vamp, it’s their most immediate moment on record for a while, and the band playfully hovered on the song’s stop-start gaps, demonstrating some of the little flashes of humour that critics often miss.
And then came the strings. Mid-set, a string section emerged to join the band for a painfully brief guest spot – a mere two songs in fact – but they were an obvious highlight. They recreated Richard Evan’s string arrangements on the gorgeous call-and-response vocals of ‘If It’s True’ and the swooning flourishes of ‘Here To Fall’. The latter is unique in that it has all the heady joy of a love song while still sounding decidedly ominous at the same time – it’s another multi-faceted love song from a band that has made a career out of exploring the unnoticed nooks and crannies of relationships.
As a live spectacle Yo La Tengo are surprisingly engaging, though they aren’t necessarily predisposed to give you exactly what you want (a changed-up ‘Autumn Sweater’ being a case in point). As a fan, you go expecting a few long songs, a few jams, but the band has enough skill after all these years to keep even their most indulgent moments interesting. For every epic, there’s a quiet moment of sweet reflection, or a sudden burst of noise.
All night, the band performed in front of a large version of the image on the back cover of Popular Songs – buttons, all different colours and sizes – and this proved to be reflective of Yo La Tengo’s songs. Some are small and delicate, others are big and garish, but they all have the same intention – bassist James McNew sang during ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, “I do believe in love”, which could quite easily be his band’s mantra. That they decided to close out that night with Georgia Hubley back on vocals, leading a hushed version of the gorgeous ‘Our Way To Fall’ and a cover of George Harrison’s ‘Behind That Locked Door’, says it all – Yo La Tengo and their skewed, odd, ordinary moments, in song and on stage.
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