I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 15, 2024] The The

I’ve ben a fan of The The forever.  My friend Garry got me into them with the Infected album and I’ve been a fan ever since.  When they played the US in 2018 I was willing to brave the Holland Tunnel to see them in New York.

And it was great.  The band was great, Matt sounded great and they played so many songs that I love.

I was surprised when six year later he announced that there would be a new album (!) and a World Tour.  I grabbed a ticket immediately when it was announced that they were playing Philly.  I’m not sure that I would have gone into New York again, but I was happy to go to Philly.

I found out later that they were going to play the entire new album and then play some hits. Cool.

It turned out that apparently President Biden was going to be in Philly that night so I left really early to avoid traffic snarls.  But there weren’t any and I arrived crazy early. Especially when I learned that the doors opened at 7:30 not 7.  In a nutshell, I was able to get right up on the guardrail (almost).

They played snippets from Johnson’s Radio Cineola (including a very quiet request for people to not take photos/videos) of the show.

And then they played the new album.  I’ve listened to it a few times and quite like it.  But i can’t say I knew it (especially the last few songs) very well. 

The band was the same as last time James Eller with a great bass sound.  Earl Harvin on drums–playing simple rhythms with really cool sounds.  And the two standouts, DC Collard on keys–including a lengthy solo during Uncertain Smile, and Barrie Cadogan who played wonderful guitar–including bowing the strings at one point.  He also sang wonderful backing vocals.

The album sounded great and I was really impressed by the people around me who seemed to know all the words.

After the set Matt said that we may have noticed that his voice was deeper than usual.  He said he had a throat and chest cold and as such he wouldn’t be able to hit any high notes.   This happened recently when I saw Nada Surf as well.  Well, that was a little different, Matthew Caws did two shows in one night and was afraid of losing his voice.  So Matt sang low for most of the songs.  His voice is always amazing, but it was a little disappointing that he couldn’t hit the melodies–mostly because I love the way he sings them.

Of course, this is the first time he’d play Philadelphia in something like 25 years, so I guess it’s better that he didn’t cancel the show outright.  But I will say that I am glad that I saw him in 2018.

The Retrospective Set was a lot of fun with a collection of songs spanning the band’s output.

Three songs from Infected, one song from Mind Bomb (I could have listened to the whole of this album), four songs from Soul Mining, three from Dusk and one from Burning Blue Soul.

As it turns out, I don’t know the two early albums as well.  My key moments from the band are the four albums from 1985-1995, so i think that this show was a but more for the diehards–and the woman right in front of me absolutely freaked out when he played “That Sinking Feeling.”

I also see that the played two fewer songs for us than for other recent shows.

My daughter has recently discovered “This is the Day” and asked that I record it for her. I’m curious to hear what she thinks of the live version.

€ = Ensoulmet (2024)
¶ = single (2017)
⇑ = NakedSelf (2000)
© = Hanky Panky (1995)
δ = Dusk (1993)
♣ = Mind Bomb (1989)
⊗ = Infected (1986)
⌉ = single from If You Can’t Please Yourself You Can’t, Please Your Soul compilation (1985)
§ = Soul Mining (1983)
⊆ = Burning Blue Soul (1981)