Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 02/11/07

First, some important information: this is not the sort of professionally objective writing you're used to here on Yahoo! Music (and it's also a good bit longer; I pray your indulgence). I have known Carter USM's two members - Jim "Jim-Bob" Morrison and Les "Fruitbat" Carter - for more than half my life, worked as a roadie for the band in their early days (though, in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that my total salary was £5, paid after a soundcheck at the Switch Club in Luton on strict condition that it was my round next), and lived in four different places with Fruitbat. I freely admit that this makes me somewhat less than impartial.

But what use is impartiality or objectivity at a gig which was sold out, within two hours, after only being advertised on the website and email list of a band who've been defunct for ten years, and critically derided for longer than that? There are no curious onlookers here, no-one coming to check out a hot new group they're not sure about. Tonight is a celebration, a night for old friends to get reacquainted with their once favourite band, and with each other. Everywhere you look, people are beaming, hollering in delighted recognition as friendships forged decades ago are hastily renewed.

They're here for two reasons. First, Carter's music was unifying and euphoric in a way few bands before or since have really matched. In what is probably the peak of a discography bristling with them, "The Only Living Boy In New Cross" nails the band's colours to the mast, hymning "the grebos, the crusties and the goths", eulogising "the good, the bad, the average and unique". Everyone in the Carter universe was important and special, everyone was welcome, and once you were part of it, you don't forget - as 5000 people here prove, practically drowning out the vocals from the stage for significant parts of the two-hour set.

The other reason all these people still care is because Carter always cared about them. The music that took hold after their mid-'90s heyday may have been anthemic, but it was made by people who maintained a distance from their audience. Thom Yorke, Liam Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft probably made better pop stars, their detachment allowing a more ritualised sort of rock idol worship. With Carter, everything was personal. "Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over" was written about the letters Jim would receive from fans in trouble and how, much as he wished he could, he was unable to ignore them and always tried to help.

Such a reciprocal relationship was unusual back then, enough to cause suspicion and - strange though it sounds to say - it definitely contributed to the critical antipathy that means Carter's pivotal place in this history of British pop has been so pitilessly purged from the official record. Today, in a world rushing headlong into constant dialogue between creators and audience, where bands have to do so much more than make a halfway decent album every couple of years, Carter's brand of respectful, conscientious and whole-hearted interactivity just looks years ahead of its time.

Individual fans could quibble over a set list which omits "Midnight On The Murder Mile" and "24 Minutes From Tulse Hill" in favour of "This Is How It Feels" or "The Music That Nobody Likes". But these songs still mean something - occasionally, in the case of the Gulf War-inspired "Say It With Flowers" or "Do Re Me" and "Glam Rock Cops"'s lambasting of meaningless pop drivel - something more. There is no noticeable rustiness, the playing better than ever, making the bands who today occupy a similar space in the guitar-pop pantheon sound anaemic next to this thunderous noise. If, this really is their first and last reunion, Carter USM leave where they always deserved to be: right at the top.

by Angus Batey & Innes Marlow (Image)