I can never remember quite how to get to the Barbican Hall, even once I’m inside the building. It feels like we’ve come to the wrong place for this kind of gig: there are carpets, people tapping away at MacBooks, and intentional décor. It was a bit disorientating until I spotted a sign pointing towards the martini bar. Its very existence meant we absolutely had to go there straight away. ‘But there are all these other bars,’ my companion protests.
Yeah, but they’re not promising the booze equivalent of booting you into next week with a loving smile while you watch one of your heroes, are they? I keep marching towards the sign while she trots along behind me, fulminating.
We’re here to see Kim Deal – actual Kim Deal out of the Pixes, The Breeders and The Amps, star of ‘Cool As Kim Deal’ by The Dandy Warhols – a quietly brilliant musician and songwriter who has been making great records with great bands since the mid ‘80s. She’s currently touring to promote her first solo album, Nobody Loves You More, a collection of tender and imaginatively arranged songs. Some of them date back to the early 2010s, like the sweetly pining ‘Are You Mine?’, about Deal’s experience of her mum’s Alzheimer’s disease. She worked on the collection with various collaborators, including members of the Breeders and the late Steve Albini.
The bar is a circular counter hosting a hive of activity, both behind and around it. Some very busy staff are trying to keep up with polite but rather insistent demand, with one stirring a martini as she dabs at a till with the other hand, while others are pouring drinks, scooping up ingredients or looking for the right bottle. Another wheels a huge trolly that looks like a bin around behind the counter, scooping out mountains of ice and supplying the cocktail making stations. Cocktail detritus mounts on the counter as the staff struggle to keep up with demand.
‘When does it start?’ my companion asks, anxiously checking her watch and looking towards the doors to the auditorium as I flip through the menu. ‘Should we get to our seats?’ she continues, as I catch an eye and dispense an order. We use the drink making time to check the tickets and, reassured that we’ve got plenty of time, she relents and orders. The martini is bang on, and starts to work quickly. Companion’s spritz is one of those non-alcoholic drinks that has the depth and astringency of a proper drink, and she’s delighted.
We make it to our seats in plenty of time and they’re luxury, too: it’s kind of hard to adjust to, like being upgraded to business class with no warning and realising you’ve got an hour to enjoy all the extras before landing, but in this case it’s extras you’d actually want in the first place, like a great view, really good sound and epic drinks, not just biscuits, slippers and mysterious bits of plastic in cellophane. Maybe this kind of luxury experience is the future of gigs, like those cinemas where they wait on you at your seat?
While we’re contemplating our good fortune, various musicians take the stage. It’s divided up with Perspex screens that I understand are to stop the sound bleeding from one area to another, but now always associate with covid. I haven’t seen that level of sophistication since I saw King Crimson performing THRAK as a double trio.
Finally Deal walks on to applause and cheers, and opens with the catchy yet profound ‘Nobody Loves You More’. It’s warmed by a string section, five backing singers and what looks like a brass and woodwind collection (our view is great, but my aging distance vision isn’t) in addition to Deal’s core band, which includes a violinist, bass player, guitarist and Deal on guitar.
We get a tour through the new album, and the orchestration is perfect every time, adding texture and emphasis to songs that are already compelling. Sometimes it’s a bit of extra accompaniment to the melody line, and sometimes it’s a delightfully inventive, harmonically rich arrangement. An acoustic guitar and ‘cello combination works particularly well.
At the end of the show, as befits the venue, the performers get a standing ovation, and we stay on our feet while they file out and then return to the stage to play the Breeders’ classic ‘Do You Love Me Now?’.
What a wonderful, wonderful performance. I’m prepared to bet my bar tab (and cocktails aren’t cheap) that this will be gig of the year, and it’s only March. I can’t quite get used to the venue though: on the way out we walk past a knot of people standing around a defunct fire hose, debating whether it’s an art installation or a safety feature.
Kim Deal‘s tour is back in the UK in June.
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Review by Hannah Boothby
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