Music
Yo La Tengo
The Garage, Glasgow
Daniel Pollitt
Four stars
Celebrating their pearl anniversary last year the New Jersey cottage industry husband/wife enterprise, plus the occasional welcome housemate, has deftly swerved those determined to label. Yo La Tengo’s 1990 long-player Fakebook mirrors their 2015 offering, Stuff Like That There, featuring an apparently themeless list of covers and given the semi-acoustic YLTreatment, supplemented with reworked gems from their own back catalogue as well as a slither of new material.
The Garage became Yo La Tengo’s community art space for the night, dressed with pop art canvases, the progressive peripatetics; guitarist/vocalist Ira Kaplan, drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley, and bass James McNew welcoming us as classmates for an intimate, introspective journey. Momma and papa Tengo Hubley and Kaplan share vocal duties, each one drawing us closer with their soothing, pillow-talk tones, McNew grounds things with his newly-acquired upright bass skills. Guitarist Dave Schramm returns for this 18-date tour, having contributed to the last album, and adds zesty tremolo twang to the trio’s stolid sound.
Homage were both sublime and obscure, from Devo's Bottled Up, Parliaments' I Can Feel The Ice Melting to a spot-on version of The Byrds' Wasn't Born to Follow. And as sensitive as the opener, The Cure’s Friday I’m in Love was, YLT’s own material was more satisfying. Deeper into Movies from their breakthrough 1997 album I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One repainted with softer, more delicate hues breathed new life into the familiar, similarly with Tom Courteney from Electr-O-Pura. Rickety, a new track, very much Yo La Tengo with a subdued Lambchop flavour.
The evening closed with a YLT Glasgow tribute, Nick Lowe's mock adulatory Rollers' Show, with Daniel Johnston's Speeding Motorcycle getting us up the road.
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