1993 saw The Lemonheads at the peak of their powers. One year on from their gold-certified It’s A Shame About Ray album, and with its follow-up Come On Feel The Lemonheads imminent, the band had also just resuscitated Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson for the college rock generation. A cursory glance around The Gate tonight reminds you 1993 was a long time ago. Evan Dando is the only original Lemonhead onstage, and while the Bostonians were always at the more subdued end of grunge, this venue has – whisper it – seats.
After set opener Hospital, a nostalgia-chasing Cardiff crowd are already baying for more familiar fare, but they needn’t worry; Dando’s in no mood to ignore them, and Dawn Can’t Decide, Down About It and a raucously cheered It’s About Time all make early appearances.
Seven songs in, the band leave their erstwhile slacker king and his audience alone. One of Dando’s charms in the age of autotune is his dedication to the idea that tonight you will hear unique versions of songs you happen to own other unique versions of at home, and which he’s played a thousand different ways before. So a perfectly imperfect Into Your Arms has the crowd near rapture, and the undimmed esteem It’s A Shame… is held in means one of its more obscure ditties Frank Mills quickly transforms into a mass, unaccompanied singalong.
At times tonight, the sound quality is inescapably poor. The Gate’s swirling church hall acoustics conspire with a crackling PA and some occasionally ham-fisted playing, but do you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because suddenly everyone remembers where they were when they first heard Confetti, Alison’s Starting To Happen, My Drug Buddy and Rudderless. The mood is unifyingly euphoric and knocks 20 years off the mean age of the audience in an instant.
As his band leave him alone again after a raucous encore, you sense Evan Dando would sing all night if he could. The man’s a troubadour, and with songs this engagingly natural, he could shamble into any room in the world and find an audience willing to join in.
(this review originally appeared on buzz magazine’s website on 5th Oct 2015 www.buzzmag.co.uk/uncategorized/the-lemonheads-live-review)
GARETH PIERCE 