Live Review: The The

Grief can be a creative catalyst for some people. Sometimes it produces a steaming pile of angsty emo turds and sometimes it produces something of the divine calibre of The The’s 1993 album Dusk.

Matt Johnson’s career spans more than one album, more than one decade, more than one country and certainly more than one line-up change but this tour has this album at its centre. That album, made in the aftermath of Johnson’s younger brother’s untimely death, was seemingly the beginning of the end for The The. Similarly, it was the death of his elder brother in 2016 that motivated him to revive the band and start performing live again.

Having said all that, there was nothing resembling a dirge anywhere near the stage of the Opera House Concert Hall tonight. 

Dusk took the bulk of the set list with Love Is Stronger Than Death, Helpline Operator and This Is The Night showing no signs of age, but they didn’t have the melancholic sighs of the original recording. They have become more than their inspiration in the intervening years. Or maybe Johnson presents them with the acceptance that comes with time and age and a little bit more wisdom and a little less raw, gaping loss than they were once recorded with. 

The The have been sometimes categorised as “post-punk” and the audience tonight could also be put in that category, but that doesn’t mean that Infected didn’t get them out of their seats to dance.

Armageddon Days Are Here (Again), The Beat(en) Generation (loves a bit of parenthesis work he does), This Is the Day, Heartland, Sweet Bird Of Truth, the gang were all here and sounding, certainly not as spiky as they once were, but most definitely still sardonic even if the sneer is a little less pronounced. 

Uncertain Smile, still putting things in the eyes of “men of a certain age”, and Lonely Planet, giving us a lovely, subtle carpe diem-esque-ness, made the night complete and even if it this is the last time Johnson graces our shores, we are better for having known him at all.