(TV) Yet another Chicago review

[Howard Webb <howard@lasercomp.demon.co.uk>]

Just got this nice review of the Chicago show from ex list member Dave Marin, this came from the Chicago Tribune:


News
WEEKEND ENTERTAINMENT
Television reunion tunes in -- and out
Greg Kot, Tribune rock critic

05/12/2001
Chicago Tribune
North Final ; N
29
(Copyright 2001 by the Chicago Tribune)

The hearts of guitar lovers pulse a little faster at the mere mention of
Television, the quartet that injected the mid-'70s New York punk scene with
a shot of '60s psychedelia. On Thursday, as part of the five-day Noise Pop
Festival, the band staged a rare reunion performance at the soldout Metro,
and demonstrated that both the expansiveness of its original sound and the
coolly cerebral quirkiness of its art-punk vision remain intact. 
Tom Verlaine, the group's long, lanky leader and primary songwriter, walked
on stage to hearty applause, only to dissipate the energy by fussing with
his equipment as though acquainting himself with it for the first time.
Anti-climactically, the quartet finally eased into "1880 or So" before the
sonic silver began to flow and Richard Lloyd and Verlaine began conjuring
the kind of spiraling solos that first made their reputations.
The dialogue between the two guitarists remains fascinating to observe,
their contrasting styles fired by a thinly veiled sense of competition (not
for nothing was Television among the few rock bands to hand out credits for
guitar solos, as detailed in the liner notes for its three studio albums). 
Lloyd, the master of riff architecture (heard to stunning effect on Matthew
Sweet's "Girlfriend" album), produced a ceaseless river of ideas behind
Verlaine's vocals on "Venus," and his solo on "Mr. Lee" suggested a cosmic
ballerina spiraling and spinning out of control. 
Verlaine, in contrast, played with six-string shadings and colors, using his
whammy bar to produce violinlike effects and bending the strings to sound
like a police siren on "Little Johnny Jewel," the band's still-potent debut
single. 
Behind them, Fred Smith concentrated on excavating deep grooves that left
plenty of roaming room for the guitarists; the opening of the epic "Marquee
Moon" evoked the airiness of a dub-reggae recording session. Television's
secret weapon remained drummer Billy Ficca, who straddled the worlds of
garage rock's "Nuggets" and John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." His role
wasn't about back beat so much as creating a third lead voice to push, prod
and complement the guitarists. 
If there were quibbles, it had to do with the song selection. Too much
emphasis was placed on the least of the band's three albums, the 1992
self-titled release, and not enough on the second, the underrated
"Adventure" (1978), from which only the encore of "Glory" was drawn. Many
fans would have been content to hear the band play the entirety of its
impeccable debut album, "Marquee Moon," and had to be disappointed when the
title track fizzled because Lloyd's guitar malfunctioned just as the song
was building to its climactic blow-out. 
But Television soldiered past that misfortune, and closed with a cover of
the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" that gave Lloyd a chance to take out
some of his frustration with a maniacal solo. It was a nice mental image to
go out on; we can only hope it won't be the last we hear of a band whose
sound has achieved that rarest of rock virtues: timelessness.

PHOTO; Caption: PHOTO: Tom Verlaine kicks it into high gear during
Television's reunion concert Thursday night. Tribune photo by John Bartley.
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