Review: THE TINDERSTICKS, Royal Albert Hall

Quite where The Tindersticks fit into the modern era is a bit of a mystery. The latest tour brings this band to the Royal Albert Hall for a show that celebrates their recent successes and their mellifluous back catalogue.

The group were one of the quintessential Nineties bands, storytellers extraordinaire who formed just as the decade properly started who went on to releasing a series of albums of increasing power and popularity. One of their few mainstream hits “Tiny Tears” was used to stunning effect in mob drama The Sopranos and their status as an understated British icon was immortalised in Half Man Half Biscuit’s “Used To Be In Evil Gazebo”: “I looked at the colour booklet they gave me in town/There was a picture of a young boy on the cover playing table tennis with a big friendly bear/An owl was umpiring, and in the background, The Tindersticks were opening the Hamilton Bland Memorial Swimming Pool”.

Despite the origins of their name (inspired by a box of German matches found on a Greek beach by singer Stuart A Staples), this isn’t a band likely to set the night afire. Maybe a gentle smoulder at best, as their songs are generally about as laidback as it gets. It's the kind of gentle music sloths might listen to wind down after a hard day of hanging from a tree branch. Or the background thrum one might hear at a party that has died away - or just plain died - as one reclines half-cut with a Silk Cut in one hand and a plastic glass of something warm and flat in the other. Maybe its even the muted beat playing in your head as you lie on a bed after a night of requited lust and while the rest of your life waits to begin. If “3am-core” was a musical sub-genre, The Tindersticks would be its godfather.

They were an unlikely hit sound amid the jangly guitars of the Britpop era and quite where they fit into the current musical climate is a bit of a mystery. Gone are the days when journalists banded around words like “long players”; the cry and hue now is for 3-minute bursts of spiky melodies and spiker lyrics. Staples’ rumbling voice is best enjoyed not in a mosh pit or from a car stereo but somewhere where it can wash over you without distractions. For those without their own private sensory deprivation chamber, the next best thing is a gig and, as concert halls go, there are few better than the Royal Albert Hall.

Fans looking for a taste of “Tiny Tears” or another old favourite “Rented Rooms” will be disappointed. Instead, there’s a sense here of a band reclaiming their original musical ethos with a post-pandemic fervour. The experimental nature of their Covid-era predecessor Distractions has been abandoned along with its use of loops and samples and the focus of the night is firmly on their 2024 album Soft Tissue.

If that collection was intended as a step forward from their Nineties’ output, it’s a small one: the lush orchestration is still present and correct, Staples is front and centre taking on almost all of the vocal duties and there’s a string section occasionally popping up to back the guitars and drums. A return to their bread and butter has proven to be a return to form, albeit now with some epic stridency streaked through it.

An excellent lighting design very much understands the assignment and delivers a crepuscular tableau of purples and pinks pricked by spotlights. Staples weaves together some spellbinding displays showing that his famous voice is still able to charm and excite. Amid the swathes of lounge-vibe numbers, single “Don’t Walk, Run” stands out as a bouncy affair that threatens to rip up their own rulebook.

The pleading on “Nancy” is as earnest as that of Michael Jackson on “Billie Jean” but this one comes with the bossa nova rhythms of an after-hours session at a Cuban music hall. “New World” is less of a song, more of an emotional manifesto as Staples over and over tells us “I won’t let my love become my weakness”. Would any of these have looked completely out of place in one of the shows they performed over thirty years ago? Probably not. Does that matter to the fans? Again, probably not.

Somehow Staples manages to be the strongest and the weakest element of this show. Time has not withered his hypnotic voice or his signature moustache but his delivery and onstage presence are not what they were. His diction is far from perfect at times; at its worst, he mumbles his way through lyrics to produce more of a lumpy bassy mush than precise words.

He shows a reticence to introduce his band members or any of the tracks and there’s a complete lack of banter other than to announce “the last song” (after which the band ploughs through four more numbers in the obligatory encore). While there’s an undeniable buzz from seeing The Tindersticks perform live in a venue that superbly complements their sound, there is little evidence here of artistic progress since their early days and some more showmanship would not have gone amiss.

The Tindersticks continue on tour.

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