"All good things", deadpans the glowering, six-foot-plus figure, as if auditioning for a part in Clint Eastwood’s "The Unforgiven", "are worth waiting for." The restive and increasingly sweaty crowd packed into this supernaturally soulless venue knows better than to expect anything like an apology for being late from Mark Lanegan. The figure who once helmed legendarily troubled, psych-blues rockers Screaming Trees and – more recently – fronted Queens Of The Stone Age – doesn’t do niceties. Not because he holds his audience in contempt, but rather because his battles with demons (namely, drug and drink dependency) have necessarily given him a strict view of what’s important in this life and what’s not. In Lanegan’s book, a fluffy "sorry" counts for shit.
He cuts an imposing figure on stage, despite his impassivity and the fact that he’s cast in semi-shadow for most of tonight. It’s where he feels most comfortable, both literally and metaphorically. One imagines that Lanegan barely copes even with the level of his modest, cult success and his solo material has always been underpinned by a strong sense of survival against all odds. He seems rooted to the spot by the intensity and power of his songs, which mix crepuscular blues and beat-up country, but edge into the territory of experimental rock.
With an equally implacable and similarly black-clad band behind him, Lanegan launches in with "When Your Number Isn’t Up", the first song on current splendid album, "Bubblegum". "Did you call for the night porter? Smell the blood running warm?" he begins, his lowering voice sounding so impossibly gravel-grazed and malevolent it’s like something dredged from a lake at dawn. "Hit The City" – a driving, stream-lined and sexy thing – follows, picking up both pace and mood at once. Dynamic and emotional variation are key, shifting the set from the hammering, upbeat hoodoo of "Sideways In Reverse", which suggests The Stooges by way of The Jesus And Mary Chain, or maybe a runaway Primal Scream, through a sweet and soulful cover of Brook Benton’s "I’ll Take Care Of You" to the filthy, thrillingly distorted closer, "Methamphetamine Blues", which indicates that Lanegan’s demons are perhaps not done with him yet.
The constant is Lanegan’s extraordinary voice, which recalls both Tom Waits and Nick Cave, but the temper of his songs is entirely his own and Lanegan delivers them – carefully, casually - against a musical backdrop that’s without fuss, fat or frills. So atmospheric is much of tonight’s set, it’s as if the room is being slowly filled with sulphurous, blue(s) vapours and "Fix", the final number of a clamoured-for encore, is particularly heady. Long after Lanegan has left the stage, its Spiritualized-like, dual guitar miasma begins to throb, building to such freeform intensity it threatens to swallow everything in earshot.
It’s an uncharacteristic indulgence in an evening of slow-burning, perfect control. Even Mark Lanegan, it seems, needs to cut loose in public once in a while.
