This is my church (VNV)

[drwex]

We saw VNV again, this time at the Royale in Boston. It's a good venue for such a show - last time they overfilled the Sinclair in HSQ. This venue held a good crowd but always with room to dance.

Opening acts were forgettable. A DJ with a couple of cute tricks and not much repertoire and a quartet that reminded me of very early Sisters of Mercy. Not a bad comparison, just "hey, it's been done, what new are you bringing?"

VNV this time was a quartet with a different drummer. A good show, about two hours of music with about half from the new album (Noire) and half older favorites. Ronan was obviously in a good mood and energetic, but there was less of the idiosyncratic banter that usually highlights a VNV show. There was one moment where - in the middle of an elaborate interactive left-of-house versus right-of-house thing - some system died. I think it was the synth because Ronan made some comment about Ableton Live, but it was hard to tell from the audience what went wrong. They decided to abort that track and Ronan ad-libbed a bit while the techs rebooted things about imagining we'd just gone through this and that and now were back to seeing VNV, as the band started on the next song.

We got several favorites, but they did not do the end-encore Perpetual I'd been hoping for. Still, I managed to move and sweat and get out some of the emotional slush that had accumulated over the past couple weeks. Ronan remarked on the concert space being a kind of "temple" and a place where outside cares could be set down for a while. Yeah, I needed that.

As usual we bought the CD at the show (artists make a much higher percentage per disc when you buy direct from them) and I've been enjoying listening to it in the car. Also notable, we brought Thing 2 to the show. They knew more words to the songs than we did, I think.

Comments

[dcltdw]

How cool!!
Thanks for introducing me to VNV a few years ago :)

Re: Comment Catcher: A Dollar a Question

[drwex]

You are welcome. The new album includes a very classical Nocturne that shows a different side of their talents. I'm told you can stream the album on Spotify.

Re: Comment Catcher: A Dollar a Question

[redbird]

You can--I'm doing so as I type this.

Thank you: I hadn't been following them (or music generally) enough to know about this album until I read your review.

[intuition_ist]

+1 -- I think i heard about them from pygment back when Judgement came out.

[silentq]

If the show hadn't been on a work night I'd have gone. I am sad to have missed it but glad I caught the Sinclair show.

[drwex]

I did look for you and saw a few folk we know in common but yeah the weeknight thing :(

They did end at 11 so we were home before 11:30 and managed to get to bed at a not-terrible hour.

[flexagon]

What's the quartet that reminded you of early Sisters of Mercy? Maybe you forgot -- you did say they were forgettable -- but I'm certainly interested. :)

I hadn't heard of VNV Nation before, but listened to a couple of songs last night and I liked it. So, cool beans. I'll listen some more.

[drwex]

Nice. What did you enjoy? Of course I'm happy to give pointers ;)

[flexagon]

It all seemed kind of forgettable until I suddenly liked it, and noticed it was playing the middle of "A Million". So I switched to Noire and liked the rest of that, too.

I need to go play it again... I'd nearly forgotten.

[jducoeur]

Useful reminder -- a friend gave me a VNV mix disc many years ago, and I liked it but never got around to following up. I should go hunt more down -- thanks!