Tricky at Kulturfabrik 13.04.16

Billed as Tricky presents Skilled Mechanics I was fairly curious to see how the evening would fare, as I had read a statement by Tricky that it was indeed fairly different from past tours, and I can say it was not only different, but a great show! The Kulturfabrik, was not packed but the turnout was larger than I had expected. The band took stage around 8:50 pm and launched into a pretty much instrumental version of You don’t wanna, which set the mood for the rest of the evening, from somewhat slow through pounding beats and sounds.  Contrary to most Tricky gigs I have seen in the past, this one was fairly stripped down, only 3 people on stage, drums / with sampler (Luke Harris), guitar (Paul Noels), and Tricky on vocals, no female guest singers.  So essentially even though the night was billed as Tricky presents Skilled Mechanics, the show itself turned out to be more of Tricky than in the past, where he kept a bit more to the background ceaselessly smoking. This time around he only lit up towards the end of the show, and was all over the stage and very much front and center most of the time.  Some of the songs, where presented in a nice and long version whereas some felt fairly short.  The weirdest one being Overcome, which without female vocals sounded great, but for some reason right in the song Tricky got Luke to stop playing, and he said, “I was in Amsterdam yesterday and this is much better”, which was surprising but very much appreciated by the crowd.  They then went on to play a bit more of Overcome, but it sort of felt a little bit off. Not sure what it was about, but to me it looked like Luke was about to trigger some vocal samples when Tricky called for a stop, then again he might just have wanted to share he liked the gig better than the one in Amsterdam. The band looked like they had fun on stage, and well Tricky seemed eager to smoke some more, and I did that as well just before the first encore.

The setlist (full list below, although I am not sure they played it as noted.. and there may have been a cover or 2 as well) was mostly made up of Skilled Mechanics tracks, some from False Idols, and Adrian Thaws. Overall I’d say it was a great show, but with the first encore clocked in around 70 minutes, which is a bit short. Granted Skilled Mechanics is a new project with only one album under their belt, but since it was billed as Tricky presents Skilled Mechanics, in my humble opinion they could have made more use of the back catalogue, and maybe played a few more new versions of older songs, or maybe even some of the lesser known but still gnarly ones.  They made up for a bit of the shortness by coming back out for second encore, after the house lights had turned on already, which was highly appreciated. As always in the past Tricky is well worth seeing live no matter with what project!

Terres rouges Festival - Esch sur Alzette 09.09.12 with Therapy and Tricky

Terres rouges Festival - Esch sur Alzette 09.09.12with Therapy and Tricky

We got to the venue around 5 pm, luckily through a friend we had been upgraded to VIP tickets, which gave a nice touch, providing free drinks and food. Shortly after checking out the VIP area, we saw a few friends sitting outside, and next to them was Tricky, so I did not miss the opportunity to say high, and thank the man for his music, which I have liked since Maxinquaye.

The first Band I actually caught most of, was Joshua, which was a lively mix of electronics, reggae, blues and hip hop, so quite worldly music, overall not bad, but for me not focused enough!

Next up were Eiffel a French band, that we caught only from far away, as most of us wanted to fill up on food. Eiffel play a solid rock show, but nothing too fancy either. On my end it was too early for food, and I preferred to heighten my buzz, and added some rhum and coke to my smoking routine.

At 20:45, Tricky took the stage, and although the sound was not all that, overall the performance of the songs did kick ass! The short time that the band spent on stage was a good show, while covering Motorhead’s Ace of Spades, the public was invited to the stage, which looking at how some people behaved (and from the looks of it annoyed Tricky a bit), was not the best idea in a festival setting.. The really good thing as with most Tricky shows, was that the songs are rarely played in their album versions, and as such become much trippier and even better flowing! As with most concerts I did quite a lot of smoking, and used about 6 of the 12 prerolled joints just at the Tricky show, so right along the lines of the music! Very disappointing was the fact that after only 50 minutes they left the stage without an encore, and still 10 minutes available on their slot.. Their was only a small crowd for most of the festival, and yes a 1 hour set is by default to short, but then it would have been essential to at least use the allocated time fully. Other than that still a solid show, but too short, and the sound was not as crisp as I am used to from past Tricky shows!

At 22:15 Therapy? Took the stage, and even though I haven’t listened much to them since the 90’s, I have to say the put forth a good show, and although I have moved on from their music, hearing a few of the older songs did bring back a few fond memories! Andy Cairns did not strike a positive note with the attendees either when he compared Luxembourg to Northern Ireland in the sense that they are both small countries surrounded by bastards, nothing wrong with the comparison, but as usual in Luxembourg a lot of the people probably came from those surrounding countries .. Overall their set was quite short as well, though they used their allocated hour fully.

Considering the price of only 15 € this was certainly worth it, the downside was the sound which was neither ideal for Tricky nor Therapy?.. But we still had fun!