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Taking the stage in near darkness, the simple announcement "hi we're fatalists" is all that's needed before Wade starts his mini-disc running, playing sounds gathered from his native Chicago. It's at first a little unsettling, as Wade blinks into the now white light blasting at him, until after a minute or so he breaks into some beautiful acoustic guitar work. It soon becomes apparent that his style is all his own, not seemingly drawing from any one particular genre. As guitar tracks finish, more sounds appear; trains, tv preachers speaking in tongues, bizarre answer machine messages, drones, and what becomes apparent, to me at least, is that what's being told here are stories. Snippets of experience of his life in the US, and the music and sounds become increasingly both unsettling and more moving as his set moves on. He ends the set with the sound of a man sleeping, Wade inhaling and exhaling along with the soundtrack, and as the last breath is drawn, the crowd show their warm appreciation of what has been a fascinating, exceptionally moving set. There was barely a gap for the whole show, but this only helped to intensify the link between the soundtracked sounds and Wades guitar eulogies. This was a beautiful show, and one that this reviewer will remember for some time to come. Giles Rothko took to the stage, and started with the usual made up intro, followed by a huge rendition of 'Time Out'. This is the point were you find out whether the audience understand what's happening or not. It seemed that the crowd knew what to expect and greeted the songs accordingly. The audience were mesmerised, and paid attention to each and every note played - a big difference to the normal London crowd. Each song was greeted by rapturous applause, and everybody was paying close attention the proceedings. They did seem a little taken aback when Crawford decided to take a photograph of them midway through a song though. Before playing the last tune, 'Goodnight', Mark explained that it would be the last song, but they would be playing another special one afterwards - "so it's the last song, but not, if you see what I mean". All become clear to the crowd at the end when Fatalists joined the lads onstage and played a tune while they jammed with him. They crowd bayed for more after this, and Rothko left the stage. After a couple of minutes of trying to explain that that was the end of the set, and there was no more, the audience kept up the clapping, willing them to play another tune. Eventually, after much persuasion, they took to the stage again to shake to rafters one more time - possibly the first time Rothko have done an encore? Talking to a couple of punters afterwards, it seems that they are better known here than in the UK. Comments such as "the best gig of the year so far", and "I can't believe that you haven't played Europe before. Rothko are one of the names up there". Then came the sight of punters wanting autographs or drawings on the record sleeves. Even me, the humble driver, was asked a couple of times to sign the merchandise - bizarre! skippy Rothko setlist: Time Out / Seventyseven A / Shock Of Self / Open / Pulse Of An Artery / Metatonic / Ambbient Gambling / Us To Become Sound / Goodnight |