[…continued from last post]

After the most perfect opening salvo to a Simple Minds live album ever, Where can anyone go but down? If Kerr’s “let me see your hands” in the song least likely to host such shenanigans was a gaffe, possibly the second lapse, if it must be said, was in playing “Let There Be Love” following pitiless edifice of “This Fear Of Gods!” The tonal shift between those two songs was just too wide a gulf for even this band to negotiate! The two songs were the work of virtually two different bands!

When I heard that pennywhistle sample and SHUFFLE beat [courtesy of 1990] follow what felt like the end of the world, I thought to myself, “why didn’t they play ‘She’s A River’ next instead?” At least that song, while Blues based, featured an intensity that could come down effectively from the high water mark of tension that “This Fear Of Gods” represented. Only to have exactly that song follow next in the set!! So close…!!!!

Next, the high-water mark of the band’s commercial pivot with “Once Upon A Time” manifested with the title track to that album. Time has been very kind to the song that I was unfairly dismissive to on release, and this performance got extra help from singer Sarah Brown, who modulated the traditional melisma that the expression vocal had in the intro down to almost stacatto levels to really make over the familiar song in her own image! Jim Kerr was also adding variation to his attack and timing that served to keep the material fresh after what’s almost [rolls eyes] forty years. It was also great to hear Sarah taking the lead on the chorus with Kerr moving to backing vocals. It’s great to know that this band are not content to coast through things after two generations of playing this material. The cold ending on Kerr getting in the last “time!’ was pretty sharp.

The always stellar “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 83, 84]” was afforded some fascinating new approaches as well. Driven by the muscular bass of Ged Grimes and the propulsive rhythms of Cherisse Osei, The first new wrinkle was with Ms. Brown echoing Kerr’s lead vocal in the chorus; expanding the horizon of the song even wider. Vamping between Kerr and backing vocalists Sarah Brown and Gordon Goudy at the song’s midpoint gave Charlie Burchill a strong foundation for his questing solos on guitar to take off. Leading into a new coda where Ms. Osei created a fascinating dialogue with Burchill’s guitar with new tribal rhythms she was introducing. But wait! As the song was in ebb she revisited her drum solo, now without any other accompaniment for an expanded solo in the coda. Had I ever heard a drum solo, in the classic sense of the word, in a Simple Minds song before? Well, there’s always a first time!

Next came the always dazzling “Promised You A Miracle.” Given that her drum solo just concluded had rhythmic stresses that weren’t a million miles away from the intro to the US 12″ mix of “Promised You A Miracle,” I think the band might have missed a chance to create something amazing via a seamless segue into “Miracle.”

After such high water marks, I guess it was time to pay the piper. Low synth drone and scant cymbal work and Burchill’s extra bluesy guitar signaled that the nearly non-stop party that was this album was coming down for a crash. Then that sampled pennywhistle returned to vex me sorely as what was “Belfast Child,” my least favorite Simple Minds song, showed up like a unwanted house guest who would not leave. When Kerr finally entered the song, which had unfurled at a snail’s pace thus far, it was at the two minute lark. And he drew out each syllable as the synths were barely there to provide accompaniment. Until Goudy’s acoustic guitar showed up to twist the knife.

Then Kerr stopped singing at the 5:09 mark, saying “thank you,” and the crowd roared in response; but it was a false respite! After a beat, Ms. Osei’s drum pattern began with jabs of a Hammond organ patch as the song really got underway. For another five, increasingly bombastic minutes of torture to my ears. Then at 9:22 in, Kerr said “thank you” one more time…followed by a half minute of applause…before he started singing the chorus one more agonizing time.

I’ve always disliked this song tremendously. It had nothing to do with any quality I ever liked about Simple Minds and was instead drawn from musical traditions which I have rejected since I was a lad. I’m not kidding when I say that this was the most interminable and infuriating version of “Belfast Child” I had ever heard. At almost eleven minutes in length it constitutes torture to my ears. After that second false ending it never fails to drive me into apoplexy.

The one time I’ve heard it performed live in person, was in 2002, where it was a slight, well under three minute version slipped into the Floating World Tour set so gingerly, as a brief introduction to a curiously placed “Waterfront” in the penultimate slot in that set list, that it failed to draw any blood. Looking back now it seems highly miraculous that I was spared that once time, and for that I’m properly thankful. Fortunately, the placement of it at the end of disc one makes for a perfect moment to end the disc early and move on to the rest of the fine program. Having duly reviewed my impressions today, I vow to never hear it ever again, in any form.

Next: …Nowhere To Go But Up