The Durutti Column - Deaf Institute 8th March 2009

What better way to spend a rainy Sunday evening in Manchester than beneath the Deaf Institutes's enormous mirror ball listening to the Durutti Column? Vini Reilly promised that “We'll start very quiet, then go a bit louder and by the end it will be an unlistenable din”. And while it never did become unlistenable he made good on his promise that it did get loud – not usually something you'd equate with a Durutti Column gig.

The gig opened with two songs from the latest album, 'Love in the Time of Recession'. “Wild Beast Tamed” and “Painting” were co-written with pianist Poppy Morgan, who joined him on stage for both songs.

With the promised quiet start out of the way Vini was joined by bass player and producer Keir Stewart and “the only drummer worth listening to in these times” in Vini's words – the legend that is Bruce Mitchell - and they stormed into “Otis” before cleverly merging it into “Blind Elevator Girl (Osaka)”

They even got over the handicap of a temporary on-stage power outage and Keir's terrible Pink Panther joke to deliver a blistering version of 'Woman', complete with some absolutely tearing guitar playing and it got a lot rockier from here on in, culminating with a much harder “Untitled for You” when compared with the recorded version.

All in all it was a fantastic gig, but if there has to be one criticism it'd be nice have some more recent material than the set stalwarts of “Missing Boy” and “The Beggar”, which I've heard at every single Durutti gig I've been to. There's some amazing stuff on the new album that would be fantastic treat to hear live.

Oh, by the way, special thanks to the couple standing right in front of me who had a blazing argument, made up then fell out again, and were last seen screaming at each other on the roof terrace. Classy.

As an added bonus I actually went to a gig and didn't get too drunk to remember the set list! So for all you trainspotters out there:

Wild Beast Tamed
More Rainbows
Otis – Blind Elevator Girl (Osaka)
Gun
Woman
Jacqueline
Missing Boy
The Beggar
Requiem for My Mother
-----
Untitled For You
----
Pigeon (actually Storm for Steve and Peter Green's Albatross!)

Anyway, some MP3s from latest album 'Love in the Time of Recession) (these will only be here for about a week):

Wild Beast Tamed

I'm Alive

Pete