Slint - Live @ Tripod, Dublin

A roughly chronological account of the gig...

1. The morning before, when I was finding the link for blend's review of Spiderland, I noticed that it had been posted in March of this year, meaning I had only been listening to Slint for less than five months. Scary.

2. Before the show started, we were all wondering how they were going to stretch this beyond 40 minutes... it's a good question. Part of the answer is, obviously, they didn't come on stage for an hour after the printed time (but all bands do that anyway). The rest of the answer... well, skip to 4. if you want to know quickly.

3. When they started playing the first few bars of 'Breadcrumb Trail', it sounded like the most familiar thing in the world. This was basically like listening to the album, but better in every way. Or if you were able to listen to the album at tremendous volume, in a room full of people, maybe that... The first sequence of 'Breadcrumb Trail' and 'Nosferatu Man' was pretty damn rocking, and then they slowed it down a bit for 'Don, Aman', when the two guitars came and sat opposite each other on stools in the middle of the stage. Halfway through 'Washer' I was thinking, maybe now I understand a little bit more what Indian Summer felt 'with the needle dragging the end of the slint lp', and where they took a lot of their sound from. The same with 'For Dinner' and the echoes of Max Colby... not really that all those bands are derivative, but that Slint just created this massively important aesthetic. Finally, with 'Good Morning, Captain', we were left with "I MISS YOU!!!" reverberating in our ears, and wondering... what happens now?

3a. To the friend who tried to ring me just before they started 'Good Morning, Captain', thanks. Really appreciate it. The phone stayed off the rest of the gig, and I hope you found the answer to your question elsewhere. Also, it was fun meeting up with everyone in the pub afterwards, saying 'Who the hell are Slint?'. The best band ever, obviously...

4. They played 'Glenn' and 'Rhoda'! That is, after playing Spiderland in its entirety, they played the Glenn/Rhoda EP in its entirety. I was pretty stoked to hear the album, and that would in itself have made the gig awesome, but hearing those two songs live just blew me away. Especially after just writing a review of those songs, to hear them so unexpectedly was memorable to say the least. Mind you, I used to think 'Glenn' was a quiet song. Not so live, however... 'Rhoda' was also upgraded to "earth-shattering". Just awesome.

5. In fact, they stretched out what everyone was expecting to be a six-song gig into a nine-song gig, with the addition of 'Glenn', 'Rhoda' and another song I didn't recognize, [but which I now know is 'King's Approach'] this one new song they have been playing as an encore. It was a kind of heavy, complex guitar song... at that point, I was already glutted on old-school Slint, so I didn't take much notice. It was quite different, actually, from anything that they're known for, and to be honest wasn't really my style. I can see why it has that name, though...

6. Now, when do I get to see 'The For Carnation Performing The For Carnation'?

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And now, for a kind of postscript/piece de resistance, this 12'' record was released one year after Glenn/Rhoda, sits 3 CDs in front of Spiderland in my own collection, is deservedly one of Andy Radin's 'top emo records', and is an excellent split, combining two major bands with differing yet complementary styles, and indeed containing some of the best songs ever released by either group: the Shotmaker-Maximillian Colby split (as if this post needed any more Slint worship!). (Note: I just made the split myself from the tracks culled from their discographies, so apologies if these are technically the wrong versions or something... neither do I know which band should come first, this is just the way I've always loved and listened to it!)