After only recently discovering Ariel Pink and really getting into his most recent album ‘pom pom’ – I couldn’t wait to see how his quirky songs were performed live on stage! Pink’s music is heavily influenced by 1980s cassette culture and since he began writing has recorded over 500 songs in various shapes and forms on hundreds of cassette tapes – the majority of which have never been released. His music has been referred to as psychedelic pop, lo-fi and experimental-pop, however, it’s near impossible to pin down Ariel Pink’s kooky, kitsch and incredibly eclectic song writing.

 

I was definitely geared up for an interesting night and looked forward to seeing how his quirky songs would manifest themselves on stage.

 

Before the first song had ended, I’d pretty much made up my mind – Ariel Pink most definitely (yet unfortunately) hurtled at great speed into the category I like to refer to as ‘the wrong side of ‘dickhead’’ and, after a few songs, it appeared that a lot of other people also agreed with me. As I made my way to buy a drink at the bar mid-set, it almost seemed just as lively as it did in the venue and, after overhearing conversations which were certainly not in praise of Pink’s live performance, I didn’t expect my opinion to change much by the end of the night. I must say though, that there were indeed a handful of hard core Ariel Pink fans rocking-out at the front right up until the last chord was strummed. For the most part, the audience didn’t seem impressed as Ariel Pink ungracefully floated about stage virtually believing himself to be the second coming whilst in between songs calling the audience ‘idiots’ and aggressively shouting "BUY THE FUCKING MERCHANDISE" amongst other things. I felt that this gig could have gone one of two ways as had the crowd been more accepting and then maybe Pink’s arrogance and narcissism would have been passed off as very ‘rock n’ roll’ and mosh-pit inducing, however, almost all of Pink’s remarks seemed to backfire on him and so the damage was done early on.

Ariel Pink mainly performed songs from his most recent album ‘pom pom’ which has a very kitsch and low-fi-glitch-pop atmosphere – however, the live interpretation came across as a more screechy rock affair without any of the innocent low-fi which is so seductive in the recorded album. I always prefer bands to perform their music different live to how it is on an album, however, Pink seemed to take this a bit too far and lost all of his intrigue – replacing it with egotism.

 

Ariel Pink had a big line-up on stage including; two lead guitarists, bassist, drummer, keyboardist and samplist which all seemed a bit excessive especially considering none of them seemed to be in the same band apart from maybe the drummer as the rest all performed as though it was a day job they didn’t care much for – and at a couple of points I even caught the guitarist yawning!

 

I was speaking to a few friends after the show who were big Ariel Pink fans who agreed that it certainly wasn’t a good gig, but have heard better reviews from other nights he’s played on the tour and so it seems it seems to be that Ariel Pink is a bit hit and miss in terms of live performance. This may be down to Ariel Pink ‘not feeling it’ with the more subdued crowd at The Old Market and even finished early not bothering to make it to curfew.

 

Ariel Pinks last song was ‘Picture Me Gone’ where he decided to get down and kiss everyone in the front row which, after Pink publically calling himself ‘the Jimmy Saville of Los Angeles’ I found both sleazy and a bit creepy.

 

Whilst I wouldn’t recommend going to see Ariel Pink live, I would still recommend his music and especially his latest album ‘pom pom’ (favourite songs being ‘Dinosaur Carebears’ or ‘Plastic Raincoats in The Pig Parade’) – even though his live performance has slightly tainted my listening enjoyment – ‘pom pom’ still continues to be a strong album.