Yo La Tengo – Kentish Town, London – The Forum, England – 2006-11-11

It’s a question that’s often asked – how far would you go to see your favourite band? I can now answer this – 406 miles lie between my flat in Edinburgh and the Forum in London’s Kentish Town and, as Yo La Tengo were not including Scotland as one of the stops on their tour this time around, it was easy enough to take time off work, travel down the day before and make a weekend of it down in London. Needless to say, it was worth making the journey of every one of those 406 miles.

The Forum was certainly an interesting venue, I’m guessing it was a cinema or a theatre in a past life, what with the hall containing a spacious balcony along with a generous floor size. It’s the biggest venue I’ve seen Yo La Tengo in yet, well, maybe the Usher Hall in Edinburgh was bigger, but only the stalls were used that night. The venue soon filled up and looked like it was close to capacity by the time Kaplan, Hubley and McNew took to the stage.

It was my seventh time seeing them and it just doesn’t get old. I know it’s a grand and sweeping statement to say this, but over the last 10 years or so they’re easily the best and most consistent band in the world, both their LPs and live shows have been varied, interesting, compelling and thrilling and it’s no different at the Forum. The dynamic between the three of them is wonderful to watch, it borders on the telepathic as they flit between instruments, Kaplan seems equally at home at the piano on the tracks they play off “I’m Not Afraid Of You…” (such as the groovy “Mr Tough”, with McNew on falsetto vocal) and Hubley comes into her own when she steps out from behind the drums to sing the gorgeous and heartbreaking “I Feel Like Going Home”, which nearly melted me on the spot.

Like always, it’s a fluid and organic show. It’s always a joy to hear the glorious, dreamy, fuzz pop of “Sugarcube” and “Tom Courtenay”, songs everyone knows by heart now, but played as if they were fresh as the day they were recorded. These sit comfortably side by side with the thrash of “Watch Out For Me Ronnie”, the majestic “Tears Are In Your Eyes”, the rollicking and scuzzy EP version of “Today Is The Day” and a quite startling cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Rocks Off”, played pretty straight and pulled off with audacity and extraordinary aplomb.

But it wouldn’t be a Yo La Tengo show without some trademark Ira Kaplan low-slung guitar mangling. “The Story Of Yo La Tango”, 11 minutes on record, is stretched out way beyond that in the live arena. It sounded huge, Kaplan attacked his guitar with increasing velocity, wringing some incredible sounds out of it as McNew and Hubley knocked out its hypnotic beat. You don’t think it’s possible that 3 people could make such an amazing noise, but they did and everyone was rapt until its conclusion. It blew me away, you have an idea what it would sound like live after hearing the recorded version, but they took it to the next level. And then some.

After the 3rd and final encore, a stunning “Did I Tell You”, it comes to an end and you can’t quite believe that 2 and a bit hours have completely flown by. Not a minute was wasted, nothing was missed, sure not everybody got to hear the song they wanted to such is the depth of their back catalogue (I was hoping for “I Heard You Looking” myself, but the aforementioned “Story…” and “Blue Line Swinger” more than compensated in the noise stakes). They’ve been at the top of their game for a while now and it doesn’t seem like abating any time soon. The best band in the world just keep getting better. Always excellent, never complacent.