Jim Noir

All feels disorganized tonight. The venue is a clumped-up mess, as everywhere I stand is a pathway for someone else. You know that moment when you finally feel comfortable amidst a swash of people, content with six inches or so of space, enough to hold a beer in front of you? Well, that moment is consistently being usurped, as everywhere my girlfriend and I stand is in the way.

But it doesn’t matter: I am glad The Borderline is packed as Jim Noir certainly deserves it. His Tower Of Love long-player is a fantastic experiment in expanding the Super Furry gift in a Miracle Fortress, while his last (more recent) EP takes after its older cousin, blending the eccentric with the winsome, creating beautiful, thoughtful pop music. Yet, Noir is not _on_ tonight. No one is. The venue is steaming, people continue to move about like microwave popcorn and Noir is nervous. Oh well.

He takes the stage – tall, aloof and chatty. But, immediately, something is off. To start, Noir forgets lyrics, spills beer all over the stage, chats more than he sings and misplaces the setlist. He keeps asking the keyboardist which song is next, then playing the wrong one, apologizing and starting again. Yes the songs are there, about eight of them from start to finish, but in each one Noir and his band find ways to screw up, mess about simple chord progressions, play the wrong tune or miss a coda.

Take ‘All Right’, for example, a gorgeous pop tune that flows like a sea breeze, built on textbook vocoder whiffs and blurry, electric strumming. Noir misses the first line of lyrics, his drummer muddles up accents and the song winds down without accomplishing anything worthwhile, creating the antithesis to what’s on the record. One mistake is allowable, even two or three, as Noir is chatty, forgiving to himself and openly nervous; but as he winds down the setlist the errors multiply rather than dwindle. Sure we laugh, embraced by an endearing and obviously talented frontman losing any sense of confidence in front of us, but this is not the Jim Noir I expect; this is something else, a shadow of the man, amateurish and embarrassing. Jim knows this.

More disappointment: he struggles through ‘My Patch’, ‘Computer Song’ and ‘Tower of Love’. He is trying to salvage the beauty inherent in these songs, I can see this, but it is all too late. The man and his band are broken; the spilled beer has muddied the crispness of the melodies and Noir exits after 35 minutes, opting to relinquish the encore in favour of an early night. Too bad because everyone, however disenchanted, is keen for another chance. The promise is still there; the performance is lacking.

Tonight’s display is ephemeral, one performance among many that Noir should have if he continues to make such whimsical pop music. Everyone is entitled to an off night, one of those days where everything seems to unfurl against you, and tonight is one of those nights. Jim Noir and his band need to rehearse, define a setlist and perform professionally, and hopefully next time they saunter down to London for a date with the capital, they shall learn from said mistakes, because tonight is an embarrassing exhibition of music, considering the amount of talent pouring out of its creators. Until next time.

Photo: Tom Martin, from Flickr