Venue: Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Date: 05 September 2001
Reviewer: Cheryl Rossi
After just a few delightfully shocking numbers, the
artsy crowd
was hooting with horror and glee. Singer Martyn Jacques had moved from
a piano,
to his accordion via a ukulele, and had sung: "I saw the piss running
down your
leg, / and I knew you were not well, / I saw the vomit come out of your
mouth /
and I knew you were in hell. / And I love you though you smell."
In addition to Jacques, the mournful crooner and madman, the
London-based trio is
comprised of contra bass player and straight man - except when he dons
a skull
mask pumped with blood - Adrian Stout, and clownish percussionist
Adrian Huge,
whose drum kit is festooned with squeaky toys and a rubber chicken. All
three
dress in Victorian style suits and hats.
Their ditties generally fall into two categories: irreverently depraved
or elegantly grave. During the
depraved, they sound like an eastern European version of the Pixies,
with
Jacques punctuating the songs with sharp "ha's" and savagely screeching
"HE . .
. RO . . ." during the romping Heroin and Cocaine. Jacques sings
with an
astonishing castrati voice, which renders his tragic tales
exquisite.
Jacques' glinting eyes and arching brow sent a seductive shiver of fear
down our spines. His pregnant pauses had us sitting on the edge
of our seats, waiting for the next delicious falsetto atrocity. He
sings of an
older man who has picked up a young woman in a park: "He inserted his
finger . . . in . . . her . . . glove."
Although they sing mirthfully about bestiality and murder, the Tiger
Lillies are comforting. They sing jollily about the perverted thoughts
that cross our minds, which we never speak of or act upon. Watching
the Tiger Lillies feels like being a child reveling in gruesome
stories and naughtiness, and provides us with cathartic release.
Jacques used to live above a strip joint in London's formerly
seedy Soho, while training himself as an opera singer. He sold hash
pipes on a street corner while dressed as a woman, and hobnobbed with
the disenfranchised and marginalized in the local bars. Perhaps this is
why he sings so passionately about girls being lured into the sex trade.
The Tiger Lillies were at their best on Wednesday night and
their set was more jovial than their first Vancouver performance in
February. The band has released eleven CDs on their own label,
Misery Guts Music, and they were selling like mad at the end of the
show.
To get a taste of the Tiger Lillies, check out their self-maintained
website: www.tigerlillies.com.
© 2001, Cheryl Rossi