Personal Gigs of the Year # 2 Big Thief at Think Tank, Newcastle Upon Tyne

From November:

'Dying

Is an art, like everything else,

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell,

I do it so it feels real,

I guess you could say I have a call.'

Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath indisputably had this gift to distil pain into poetry, so it seems do Brooklyn band Big Thief who I was fortunate enough to catch at Newcastle's tiny Think Tank last night, spitting distance from my flat in the heart of Newcastle. A three-piece now it seems, (which I'll come back to later), with a rare ability to capture the pain that many live their whole lives in. They focus on that pain but their mastery and sensitivity in delineating it transforms it somehow into beauty. That after all is the gift of art.

Led by Adrianne Lanker, (and they are indisputably led, as she's such a mighty talent that she would inevitably lead any band she was a member of), they played before a small, probably not quite sell-out, but deeply committed audience in a set that became an intense memorable early Christmas present for everyone who was fortunate to be there.

Two wonderful albums, this year's Capacity and last year's Masterpiece, already gives them a considerable body of work to cherry pick from, to the point where Lanker asks the audience if they have any requests one song from the close of their set. Plagued by trouser problems, she shuffles on stage wearing the oddest, ill-fitting and precariously balanced leather pants, (she proceeds to discuss the American/ British trousers/ pants dispute). The pair she was planning to wear were locked in a malfunctioning washing machine all morning. The gig goes well despite the trousers. The band play an assured and confident set, sometimes with long pauses between songs as they re-tune and consider what they want to do next but this all adds to the considerable intimacy of the evening.

Two songs in someone shouts from the audience, 'How's Buck?' a reference to clearly absent guitarist Buck Meek. 'Buck's fine,' replies Lanker, 'He's recording his solo album.' This, you can't help but feel,  doesn't tell the whole story and leads me to suspect that there's been some split that may be more disquieting than she is willing to let on. I suspect the lack of Meek slightly diminishes the band's sound and puts more weight on Lanker's shoulders but they're broad and they put on a fine show. This occurs within the strict remit of the Think Tank's ten o'clock curfew, which means the audience don't quite get the altogether classic experience they clearly relish and the band are more than capable of. No encore and much is left unsaid but we more than got our money's worth.

Some of these songs already sound like perfectly formed classics to me. The band have a way of documenting the torments of small town America. They're based in Brooklyn now but Lanker originally hails from Minnesota and it shows. Whatever's happened with Meek I hope it doesn't divert them from the wide road they're embarked on because they have a specific and beautiful talent, as the devoted few that were gathered in the Think Tank last night can testify. At the end of the set I looked across at a cluster of four or five kids who couldn't have been more than seventeen at most, at the cusp of the stage who were in their own small trance, breathing in every last one of Lanker's words and every last note of the band's finely judged musical settings. It was great to see. Music, as Lanker commented at one point is the universal language. A fine night. Watch them go!