Ty Segall turns up the heat and the volume as he hits the Capital
2nd August 2012, The Dome, Tufnell Park, London
You can tell a great gig from a mediocre one when you forget about the fact that you feel like you’re in an oven, you’re completely drenched in sweat and your ears are bleeding because heck, that music up there onstage is just so transfixing all that trivial stuff like hearing and personal hygiene doesn’t matter much right now.
I’d given up my full-time subscription to the mosh-pits a few years back, but every so often there’s a sound that just makes you jump right back in there. I’d succumbed to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Moon Duo and Sebadoh recently, and as a gushing convert to the so-called garage revival, this relatively intimate show by US wunderkind Ty Segall was always going to get me hot under the collar. Both physically and metaphorically.
The facts have been much discussed. Ty’s 26, he’s the sort of restless artists who wakes up everyday and records an album just because he can. This year alone he’s already had his name on two albums, and has another solo project due in the autumn. The Merch stall in London is a testament to his incessant disability to stand still, groaning under the weight of his recorded back catalogue.
This show is under the name of the Ty Segall Band, the motley crew who recorded the latest album Slaughterhouse. Ty on guitar and vocals, Emily Rose Epstein banging the drums, Charles Moothart on guitar, and longtime Segall partner Mikal Cronin on bass and backing vocals (Cronin himself played a fantastic solo date I went to in the capital recently that was almost equally as heated). As expected, the set leans heavily towards tracks from that record. The pounding Death and chiming I Bought My Eyes tell you everything you need to learn about Segall’s pop/metal/psychedelic aesthetic, and are delivered at a blistering pace and volume. His widespread appeal and notoriety sees the crowd split into two camps. The brave (and drunker) ones pound the front of the Dome, surfing, jumping, beer throwing and cradling Segall as he makes one of a handful of ventures into the floor. The calmer cradle a plastic cup at the back, nodding appreciatively. This is a party everyone’s invited to. The Ramones-like urgency of tracks like Oh Mary (all 1 minute 37 seconds of it) barely gives you time to grab a breath.
For the encore there’s time for a cover of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Cheap that Segall jokingly introduces as “a song we wrote five years ago”. And then Segall bounds off to the Merch stand where he meets every last fan and happily poses for photos and signs records as we squeeze out to gasp some much-needed fresh air. Punk rock attitude onstage, and a nice guy to boot off of it. I pick up a vinyl copy of his singles collection and congratulate him on. What did he make of the London reaction “Awesome!” he beams, as we briefly exchange notes on how sweaty we are. Ty’s back in London in November. Next time I’m definitely wearing shorts.
Ain't No Cure 