Time Enough at Last
Idiot Joy Showland
Edinburgh Man
High Tension Line
Gentlemen’s Agreement
Mr. Pharmacist
Free Range
Hip Priest>Big New Prinz
Return
Pittsville Direkt
The Mixer
And Therein
The Birmingham School of Business School
Deadbeat Descendant
Blood Outta Stone
White Lightning
So-Called Dangerous
NOTES
79 minutes
Back of the hall audience recording of fair quality.
Interesting that the band should play the same venue six days apart. The second night and the last gig of 1991 features a by the numbers run through of the recent material. Bush’s swirling analogue sounds tend to dominate and initially the drums are mostly inaudible being reduced to chittering rattle underneath the bass. Smith is generally audible but the whole thing is essentially ruined by a very noisy punter near the taper who burbles away throughout.
The start of the gig seems to lack cojones and meanders along – this may be partly due to the quality of the recording which reduces Smith to a karaoke singer over a tinny backing tape. There is some degree of improvement from “Gentleman’s Agreement” onwards which has a languid moody swagger to it. “Pharmacist” certainly has some bite and there is a sense that there is a little more light and shade developing, and by the time “Free Range” kicks in there is a more muscular and essentially “noisier” feel to the whole affair.
“Prinz” is its usual big mean moody and slinky self tumbling along at a fair old pace…
The rest you can file away under end of tour Xmas Ennui.