Tunng – Heaven

Why this gig?

Because Tunng are wonderful and everyone should see them as often as possible.

Support

I hadn’t heard of Pinkunoizu before. But I was impressed as soon as they started. It’s a strange mixture of surf rock and krautrock. It shouldn’t work but it really does. I’ll be checking them out further – starting with their latest album.

Headline

As soon as Tunng take the stage there’s a mystery. Their usual female vocalist, Becky Jacobs, is missing. Her place is taken by another woman. It’s forty-five minutes before we’re told that her name is Gris-Gris and “she’s been playing with us for a few weeks”. But there’s no explanation of what happened to Becky (Update: I later found out that Becky couldn’t be on this tour because of other work commitments).

It’s only a few months since I saw Tunng at the Lexington and not much has changed. The set list seems very similar and the band are, if anything, better than they were three months earlier. They play a good selection of songs from most of their albums and Gris-Gris ensures that Becky isn’t missed too much.

For the encore they are joined by founding member Sam Genders who leads them through “Woodcat” and “Bullets” while skillfully avoiding the giant balloons that are bouncing around Heaven over the audience’s heads. It’s a couple of years since Genders left the band, and I’ve seen them three times in that time. On two of those occasions Genders has joined them for the encore.

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