Golden Animals [Live] @ Deaf Institute, Manchester

14th Aug 2009

August 17, 2009, 10:50 PM

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Golden Animals were not scheduled to come on stage until midnight, and by this time the audience had thinned out, leaving a preponderance of 40+ musos. American vocalist / guitarist Tommy Eisner and Swedish-born drummer and vocalist Linda Beecroft were onstage promptly enough but were still setting up.
Man these guys look fried, the hippy vibe being taken to quite some extreme. Pants frayed to within an inch of their lives, Tommy with one boot undone and the other completely worn through the toes. Linda in a smock and leggings and playing the drums with bare feet on the pedals. The necessary entourage were in similar garb, headbands, embroidery, almost the polar opposite of glamour. I wrote a little note on my hand which read "knitting glitter out of lentils", this being a reference in part to the now almost obligatory cheek paint. There followed a deal of faffing, leading to a fellow gig go-er to ask "How can it take just 2 people so long to set up?"

The promoter of the tonight's gig was on stage, half thrilled to have snared Golden Animals first-ever UK gig, and more than half anxious about the delays. He explained that Golden Animals had almost not got here at all. Somewhere along the line today their car broke down in what he amusingly described as the 'Northampton Desert'. Tommy and Linda were so keen to play Manchester that they stumped up £140 in taxi fares just to get here. So hey, in that context what's a bit of a wait between friends?

By now the delays of the day felt as though they were building up. Linda on the drums was warming up playing along to the DJ set, specifically '15 to 20' by those Handclap people, and Tommy got to the point where he looked like he just couldn't hold it in. The promoter valiantly tried to introduce them but Tommy - in some random moment at the back of the stage - just started playing. I was frankly amazed that anything was going to come out of the amps and mics but it surely and certainly did.

You have to bear in mind that at this point I had no idea whatsoever what to expect, except for preconceptions based on appearances. Which meant that, when they eventually produced sound, I was totally not expecting the raw garage blues that emerged from this pair. The quality was a bit glitchy for the first track but quickly got dialled in. I can safely report that Tommy and Linda can play.

As soon as my mind could overcome its disorientation, my single and repeated thought was that Golden Animals are most definitely the real deal. It's possible to analyse too much about the sources and influences of music, but if I had to pin this anywhere, think very early Stones or the point where the Yardbirds started. I wrote another note on my hand which simply said "Howlin' Wolf crossed with a Beach Boy". If you are familiar with the London Sessions you'll understand what I'm getting at. I'm not any sort of committed fan of the genre so this is quite some praise.
Reluctantly but necessarily I will make the inevitable comparison with Jack and Meg White given the blues-rock drums-guitar girl-boy reference points and all I can say is that Golden Animals to me were a completely separate development. Golden Animals were ploughing their own furrow in some continent of their own making. Linda's backing vocals added enough to lighten what might have otherwise been testosterone fuelled. That and the West Coast desert infusion gave it quite a gorgeous feeling.

It's only the second time I've been to the Deaf Institute and the venue is fabulous for its size. Respect to promoters Akoustik Anarkhy for pulling this off in advance of the band's appearance the next day at Summer Sunday. The monitors and stage gear looked (like the band) to have been hanging around from the mid-70s but the sound quality was great after the initial faffing and Golden Animals are more akin to warm analogue vinyl than your crisp clean digital rubbish.

Golden Animals weren't on stage for that long, but to be honest, much as I really enjoyed it, by the time they came off I'd heard enough. It was maybe sufficient to have a Golden moment from the Animals, although I will readily acknowledge that my lack of familiarity with their material was probably the factor in that. In fact it's worth relating that we bought their Free Your Mind and Win a Pony CD on the way out, stuck it in the car stereo, and by the end of the weekend must have listened to it four or five times straight.

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