As if one eccentric twitching loon wasn't enough for a whole festival at London's premiere performing arts venue, tonight Meltdown curator and jobbing 'mad bloke' Lee 'Scratch' Perry has brought Tricky along. Although quite whether Perry is sufficiently in charge of his senses to programme a video recorder, let alone a festival of contemporary music, is a subject that will be much debated this week. Someone, then, has drafted up the invites for Meltdown 2003.
Until Perry is wheeled out to join Tricky and babble inexorably along to the tune of 'Pre-Millennium Tension's 'Ghetto Youth', it's business as usual for Bistol's maddest professor of sound. And that means vocals so cracked and whispered, a microphone so low in the mix that Tricky's presence is more one of spiritual supervisor as his hugely accomplished band gets down to business. Just as he did on this very stage a couple of years back, Tricky opts to shuffle out into the darkness to opener 'You Don't Wanna', doubtless assuming that the crowd, thrilled by recognition of the familiar strains of Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams', will then happily sit through an hour and a half of muttered psychic sludge.
Yes, rumours of Tricky's 'pop direction' have, once again, been greatly exaggerated. In fact, he remains one of our few relentlessly experimental and challenging musicians. That it's frequently the listener's patience which he most challenges is a shame. Tonight his greatest shortcoming is his unwillingness to come forward and take centre stage from his latest muse, Costanza Francavilla. It may be that he's suffering from an acute case of Benson & Hedges Throat - when he speaks he sounds like Darth Vader - but the songs lack focus and control as he mutters indistinctly, hiding behind her proficient but rarely engaging vocals.
The few occasions when he touches the heights of his mid-nineties peak come as his incantations come together with the splintering drums of Perry Melius. On 'Lyrics Of Fury' circular rhythms charge endlessly, unencumbered by the slightly anachronistic 80s rock dirge that drags down much of tonight's material. Here, you sense the potential, if he could just find it in himself to come out from the shadows.
Then, there's Lee Perry. Hardly the shy and retiring type, Perry is a man happy to confront the world whilst hopping from side to side like a geriatric skanker at the dancehall. "Tricky, Tricky, Tricky," he, er, improvises. "Lee 'Scratch' Perry," returns Darth Vader. Thankfully, Mad Professor is on hand to artfully dub the whole debacle into something like a half-decent version of 'Ghetto Youth'. Sensing the limits of his contribution, an ecstatically received Lee 'Scratch' Perry edges off the stage. "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye..." A light bulb somewhere flickers into action... "Unify, unify, unify..." And with that he's gone.
