On to day three of Meltdown and The Freewheelin’ Yo La Tengo, who performed an intimate gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank. The ‘Freewheelin’ was qualified by the band as “that which we’ve all agreed to term “acoustic,” although there is copious use of electricity. No set list; instead the audience is encouraged (if not required) to interact with the band, leading we’re never quite sure where. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll hear the occasional song.”

The set then worked as something of a jocular Q & A session between the ‘acoustic’ sound of a stripped down drum set, bass and guitar. The extremely charismatic and likeable Yo La Tengo opened with renditions of ‘Tom Courtenay’ and ‘Black Flowers’ before starting the open floor session with the ‘reticent’ London audience shouting out random requests and posing bizarre questions. Taking in enquiries regarding such varied topics as Antarctica, Judge Judy, the ATP set list superpower, baseball, Daniel Johnston, the band’s name, cricket,  Ira and Georgia listening to Yo La Tengo while getting it on, and swinging; the band somehow managing to segway these often ridiculous, as well as humorous, anecdotes into songs.The set list from this ‘pro Brian Eno’ band (as discussions revealed)  included a cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘I Found a Reason’, ‘Dreaming’, a track from the recently released record Fuckbook (under the alias Condo Fucks), ‘Drug Test’, a tender rendition of ’Autumn Sweater’, as well as a preview of material from the new album,  Popular Songs, due out on 8th September. This was mostly conveyed in beautiful, stripped down yet warm versions. Ira managed to restrain himself, while occasionally threatening to let his guitar breakout hitting on the fuzz and some constrained feedback, seemingly particular relishing the Condo Fucks effort, and Georgia’s voice was as evocative as ever. The evening lost a little momentum when the crowd fell off toward the end of the show after a rant from a audience member (about something to do with Dylan, Hallelujah, Radio 4 and the middle class apparently) leading to some embarrassing baiting from the spectators, and a vague quaint threat of falling into tame disarray before the Q & A was fairly promptly ended. They finished their set with ‘Mr Tough’ and an extremely well received rendition of ‘Sugarcube’ before an encore.

New material sounded as strong as ever, but I’m not going to pretend to offer any sort of critical analysis of this; I love this band too much to fake partiality. An excellent show with a level of candidness, drollery and interaction especially rare these days.  Georgia, Ira and James delivered vocally, musically and in terms of banter, endearing them to the vast majority of the crowd. I certainly laughed and enjoyed the compact set.

If you missed them, catch them on their return to the UK in November after the new album drops, and see the website (www.yolatengo.com) for their recent self released compilation of their soundtrack contributions, They Shoot, We Score, and their score to The Sounds of Science. Don’t forget to look up Fuckbook too.

GE