Deerhoof at the Garage

The Garage, Highbury, London
4th December, 2012

This was the last show of the main part of Deerhoof's Breakup Song tour.

I last saw them in Camden on the Friend Opportunity tour a few years back. That was while they were between Chris Cohen and Ed Roderiguez, so it was just a three-piece, John Dieterich having to handle all the guitar work himself. I'd just made contact with John whose older brother Dan was a school friend (and first kid at school to get a band together) when I was living in central Wisconsin in the 80s...John was the quiet younger brother quietly practising guitar in his bedroom.

I got back in touch recently and he kindly sent me their latest album and some interesting side projects he's been working on, also put me on the guest list for this gig. John's been really supportive of my books, one of those people who takes a real interest in what others are doing. I get the impression that the whole band are just really nice people, refreshingly deserving of the success they've had worldwide.

Support from the Brooklyn duo Buke and Gase, who were quite interesting (a singer with a Kristin Hersh kind of voice playing a bass ukelele — that's the "buke" — and someone else on hybrid guitar-bass, or "gase"). Unfortunately their sound was a bit muddy and the music was locked down to some prerecorded material, so it couldn't really breathe. And the audience barely could either, considering how squashed and overheated it was in the venue. But Deerhoof's set was outrageously high-energy, especially considering the ridiculously high temperature.

There was a nice little Canterbury contingent...Rosy P, Leon from Rae, Seth and Pete from The Boot Lagoon and Chiltern who used to run the digital half of the "Le Rig" lightshow. Everyone greatly impressed.

Nothing's surfaced on Youtube from that show (despite lots of smartphones being aimed in the band's direction), but here they are a few days later at All Tomorrow's Parties on the Sussex coast (the real end of the tour, after a couple of dates in Spain):