YO LA TENGO

YO LA TENGO AT LONDON PALLADIUM – 14/04/23

“It’s nice to hear London accents again,” I say as we walk down Oxford Street. We don’t live in London any more, and so don’t hear London accents as part of our daily lives. Wife, for her part, identifies a way of walking particular to busy London streets, a sort of pacy purposeful parade, as different as it could possibly be to the kind of dithering, directionless dawdle more common in the provinces.

London walk

There’s no support band tonight; YO LA TENGO are playing two sets instead. “Oh, there’s an interval,” says a person, upon seeing the stage times. “I love that!”

No support band

In many ways they are the most unlikely of bands to be filling the PALLADIUM. They’re not cool, or attractive, or edgy, or innovative, they’re not virtuosos, or particularly great lyricists or singers (in fact, they’re not even really singing; it’s more a sort of melodic talking, or even, at times, tuneful whispering), there’s no lightshow, no posing or posturing, no anthemic sing-alongs, no hits. No one cheers when they recognise a song they like. They’re just not that kind of band. So, what is it about them? Is it their honesty, their authenticity, their simplicity, their melodicism, their reliability, their quietness, their loudness, their warmth, their humanity? Yes, I think it must be. All those things, probably. “We’ve been in this band for a long time,” says Ira Kaplin, and, when everyone cheers adds, “Thanks for cheering our longevity.” Maybe that’s part of the appeal too: longevity. The fact that they have kept going. They haven’t stopped or given up or died. They just keep going. And they haven’t lost it. They’ve still got whatever it was they had to begin with. “He never looks particularly happy to be performing,” says wife of Kaplin. “None of them look terrifically happy,” I observe. I couldn’t tell you what any of the songs are called, but they all sound familiar and terribly lovely, like a warm blanket you can wrap around your legs on a chilly day. After a while it begins to have a soporific effect. Wife is yawning. “I’m getting sleepy,” she says. “Have a little nap,” I suggest. 

Soporific

The second half is a bit more upbeat. Well, it’s equally ponderous and unhurried, but louder, put it like that. People are wigging out in their seats. At one point a man gets a bit overexcited, jumps to his feet and starts pumping his fist in the air, as if trying to inspire a sort of mass stand-up. But it doesn’t catch on. It’s just not that sort of thing. One thing that makes me laugh about Yo La Tengo is the way that when they walk on and off stage and when they move about the stage swapping instruments and what have you, there is a real urgency and purposefulness to their movements which is almost entirely lacking when they are playing. But that’s OK. That’s just who they are, and that’s probably why we’ve loved them all these years.