Sebadoh / A Grave with no Name
Academy 3, Manchester
23/08/2011

Imagine a young Harry Dean Stanton performing the works of Sparklehorse in the company of the young lad from the porch in Deliverance – this is somewhat akin to watching three-piece A Grave With No Name, a feisty band of up-and-comers who support Sebadoh tonight. Garnering extra Mo Tucker points for a cool Japanese drummer and encompassing a sound that takes in Neil Young and Roxy Music at times, A Grave With No Name are ones to watch.

Sebadoh, meanwhile, remain a defiant live proposition. Having teamed up for on-again, off-again tours a la Pixies, Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein have ditched original drummer Eric Gaffney who accompanied them last time out for Lowenstein’s Fiery Furnaces cohort Bob D’Amico (a man who looks like the dog from Wilfred sans dog costume). The ‘Doh blaze through a 32 song set that gives Mr Barlow and Mr Lowenstein opportunity to show off their best tracks: opener ‘On Fire’, ‘Magnet’s Coil’, ‘Brand New Love’ and ‘License to Confuse’ from Mr Barlow, ‘Give Up’, ‘Got It’, ‘Not Too Amused’ from Mr Lowenstein.  Back in the day, Sebadoh were the grandsons of Hüsker Dü, Barlow the Bob Mould to Lowenstein’s Grant Hart – and as with Hüsker Dü, you invariably had fans who preferred the Barlow tunes to the Lowenstein tunes and vice versa. Such divisions are largely put away with now and the crowd in the Academy 3 lap up Barlow’s wallflower rock with just as much vigour as they greet Lowenstein’s approximation of hardcore.

By the finish – a revisionist tear-through of ‘Willing to Wait’ that Barlow last performed in fragile form when he played here solo in 2009 – Sebadoh have shown the youngsters how it’s done and left a few ears whining and howling with feedback. Roll on the next time we say.

Peter Wild