Drummer Reni comes across as the heart and soul of the band and also the most fragile piece of the jigsaw. It's to Shane's credit that when he storms off during their European warm up tour he doesn't use it as a way of adding drama and tension to the film but instead retreats and lets the music do the talking.
Although it's the instantly recognizable parts of songs that make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up; the bassline from I Wanna Be Adored, the guitar intro to Waterfall etc., the band sound at their most exciting when they go off the beaten track and allow the music space to breathe. The extended version of Fools Gold from their Heaton Park concert shows just what sets them apart from all the other late 80's/ early 90's guitar bands. As they hit their stride the groove becomes hypnotic and feels like it could go on forever without losing the audience. It reminded me of the way Spike Lee ends his Michael Jackson documentary Bad 25, playing out in full a live rendition of Man in The Mirror that is so good you never want it to end.
In David Byrne's How Music Works he talks of the way that music recordings have changed people's relationship with songs and how the recorded version has become the definitive version. Audiences go to gigs expecting to hear tracks exactly as they sound on record and bands end up trying to recreate a sound in an acoustic space that is unsuited to it being played that way. Songs should be living, breathing entities that sound different every time they are played. They should adapt and react to their surroundings and their audience. The version that ends up on record is just a snapshot of that song at that particular time in the recording studio.
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