THE GUTTER TWINS + Great Northern @ Cabaret Juste Pour Rire

By Comma Chameleon - Semicolon Cancer; - 03/15/2008

I was very impressed with The Gutter Twins’ opening act, Great Northern on Saturday. The very melodic, keyboard-led arrangements and long, epic-ish set list tunes led me to wonder what they’d sound like on their album, priced reasonably at their merch table. My friend said they sounded like Metric, led by a female but who had a better voice, with much better tunes and cohesive arrangements. They were a thing to recommend. As far as opening acts go, surprisingly good.

A good 20 minutes/half an hour/eternity later, I saw Gutter Twins collaborator, Joseph Arthur step out on stage and a scruffy long-haired goon who I couldn’t see from my angle during the set but who I suspected was Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy van Leeuwen. I was wondering where those monster solos were coming from. Another five or ten minutes later, Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan stepped out and launched right into their recently-released Gutter Twins debut opener, “The Stations,” one of my two favourite pieces off the album. I was hoping for old throwbacks from Dulli’s early ‘90s outfit The Afghan Whigs’ album, Gentlemen (highly recommended), as well as ancient Screaming Trees or Lanegan solo pieces from works like Field Songs or Whiskey for the Holy Ghost (both also highly recommended). For the non-album pieces, they played from Dulli’s Twilight Singers distraction, as well as a few Lanegan pieces from his powerful Bubblegum album, where Dulli took the role of PJ Harvey. Dulli is a dominant leader, and led his band strutting around, pointing, singing, playing guitar and shaking his head, dancing all the while, where Lanegan simply stood on the spot fellating the mic until he walked offstage.

There were some very nice surprises tucked in, one of which was a secret weapon Dulli had tucked away -- an almost ironic cover of Jose Gonzalez’s “Down the Line,” which I had seen Jose play at the same venue the night before...ironic because Jose does so many covers himself. I knew Dulli had played this live before but this was an incredible surprise, and very well performed. Some other wonders were far too short (they teased “Shadow of the Season” by Screaming Trees as well as “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” by Led Zeppelin, my favourite Zeppelin tune and the one I listened to earlier that day. Marvellous, but again, too short.

Dulli’s small-talk during the performance consisted of about five French words repeated throughout the set, and Lanegan’s not much of a talker on a good day. My hero, he said not a word, didn’t open his eyes once -- he threw up a peace sign and trundled off as soon as the last tune was over. I love that guy.

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