A Night Out with… Lemonheads

Dando does little to dispel demise rumours in sold out gig in Zürich’s Bogen F.

Evan Dando’s performance at Zürich’s Bogen F suggests rumours of his demise may actually be true. © Gareth Jones

The Lemonheads are Evan Dando and whichever two musicians are accompanying him. His memoir, released this year, is entitled “Rumours of My Demise”, probably because many people expected him to be the next rock and roll casualty after Kurt Cobain in the nineties. Those of us that braved a stormy night to attend his band’s concert could be forgiven for thinking that the title of the memoir should have included two extra words, namely ‘are True.’ It was indeed a truly memorable night, but for all the wrong reasons.

Dando hunches almost apologetically on to the stage like some Gothic Goya figure with a skateboard in hand, though what he hopes to do with it on a stage of about four square metres is never made clear. He then proceeds to scramble around on the floor with guitar before ‘facing’ the audience, although his whole demeanour brought to mind Elvis Costello’s most memorable line ‘and I would rather be anywhere else but here today.’ The band then proceed to knock out their two to three minute grunge inspired numbers. But then the problems start. After the fourth song Dando finally realizes what the rest of us could have told him three tunes earlier, namely that his vocals are incomprehensible. This causes him to rant about ‘this is a shit venue for rock and roll’ and lambasting the arches themselves that form the roof of the venue. After the next song he slams the microphone stand down on another part of the stage, and some of us were wondering if he would make it through. His frustration at how the gig is proceeding is not exactly confidence-building for the audience. At one stage, after about 40 minutes, he acknowledged there was an audience even there, and had a bit of fun with a couple of front row fans by getting them to play his guitar with an empty red bull can. Looking back this was one of the highlights! Who knows, maybe those two gig goers will form his next band as after about fifty minutes of his average back catalogue/new album he decided to improve the atmosphere by dishing out red cards to his until then admirable drummer and bassist. Left alone he picked up his acoustic guitar and decided to slow things down, which certainly relieved us of the monotony of the previous songs. We could hear his voice now somehow, and even got a glimpse of a smile, but then the evening turned full karaoke as having had a train crash of an evening with his own material he decided to embark on cover versions, and had the cheek to do his take on John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness”, which only served as a reminder of how good the original was, and had us pining for Nanci Griffiths exquisite vocals. Then he went full downer by offering a rendition of Cohen’s “Suzanne”. Hmmm. It was clear he was now improvising and making up his setlist on the hoof. His next attempted acoustic song didn’t make it past the first verse, one can only assume he forgot the lyrics or chords or whatever. It was shambolic. As he began to embark on another I turned to my concert-going pal of twenty years standing and suggested heading off into the night. By this stage there were almost more people outside the Bogen F than were still inside suffering.

The main problem for Dando, technical issues with his microphone and lack of any attempt at repartee with his audience notwithstanding, is that the songs are very average. It’s a Shame About Ray was really the only high point. And when your most famous song is a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson”, then maybe you’re not the one who should be embarrassing your fellow-musicians and criticizing the venue. The audience were in expectant mood at the beginning of the evening, ready to welcome one of their nineties heroes. They looked quite nonplussed by the time we managed to sneak out.

The support band, Pablo Infernal, were enthusiastic, perhaps overly so, if the noise emanating from the drum kit was anything to go by. The lead singer’s vocals were also all but lost - encountering similar problems to Dando later. Nevertheless, he was no Ian Gillan.