“Can you give me an ‘N’?” begins Kurt Wagner after shuffling on in a trademark trucker cap and taking his seat at the far right of the stage. “Can you give me an ‘I’?” he continues, “can you give me an ‘X’?”, and so on, spelling out Nixon, the title of Lambchop’s 2000 breakthrough record. “You get the idea right?”
The singer’s droll introduction aptly prefaces both the evening’s mood of lighthearted reverence and the mild air of going-through-the-motions that will pervade at least part of the show, the bulk of which comprises a Don’t Look Back-style performance of the Nashville alt-country band’s most celebrated album.
Nixon’s intimate place in fans’ lives is best summed up when Wagner shares a recurring revelation heard at the merch table: couples reminiscing about having sex to its lush, wistful strains (“and these are now old people”). Economics have until now augured against it being revisited like this – the ever-fluid Lambchop lineup in the Nixon era stretched into the teens. The solution is a stripped-back re-creation by just six players plus Wagner, variously on bass, drums, guitars, keys, brass and woodwind. Laidback, too: from the sweeping sadness of Nashville Parent to the featherlight soul groove of What Else Could It Be?, even by the originals’ easy-going standards, these versions are horizontally mellow. Were it not for the handclaps-dappled opening bars of album centrepiece Up With People, which is met with a polite ripple of applause, it might have been necessary to go around checking for pulses. It doesn’t help that Wagner’s lugubrious, half-spoken vocals are for whatever reason not carrying well tonight.
But a welcome element of surprise later creeps into proceedings, with a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s Give Me Your Love, followed by a couple of pre-Nixon gems in My Face Your Ass and We Never Argue, interspersed with knowingly corny wisecracking from pianist Tony Crow. Closing with a take on David Bowie’s Young Americans is a delightful touch, as Wagner and co struggle to suppress smiles while indulging a little nostalgia trip of their own.
