2080 | Eaten by Monsters

This week the thirty-seventh series of Later… with Jools Holland kicked off with it’s 250th episode. I’m in two minds about the show, to be honest. On the plus side, it’s easily the best music performance show on telly, and on the down side, it’s easily the best music performance show on telly… Surely this can’t be all that the idiot box has to offer? 250 episodes and no-one’s come up with anything better? I have to say the formula is starting to wear a little thin at the seams: the token “world music” band, the “kooky” act that gets one song in the middle, Jools’ dreadful boogie-woogie jams with any band that’ll let him (despite the fact he can’t really play anything other than white notes), the fading legends trading on nothing more substantial than their (long-past) previous successes and, worst of all, the interminable “chats” that Jools insists on conducting… If there’s somebody out there more unsuited to interviewing than Jools is, I’ll be very surprised.

And yet it remains the doyen of music television, unequalled, unchallenged and unimpeachable. Just as I cite its formulaic nature as a downside, it could be argued that its consistency is the seed of its success; both in terms of the accessibility of the show no matter how disparate the guests appear, and the consistency of the bookings. The roll-call of acts that have appeared on the show is impressive, to say the least, and Later… is still the place to launch a new band’s success. Careers are often quite literally constructed overnight on the hallowed boards of Television Centre (will KT Tunstall and Seasick Steve please stand up?). And as a television show where the actual filming of the music takes priority (the audience are squeezed in around the edges of the studio, with the prime spots going to the cameras themselves) Later… is still pretty much unique. Live from Abbey Road was a commendable attempt to take the concept even further, but without a live audience or compere (no matter how cheesy) it somehow felt disjointed and cold. As much as I may niggle and gripe from the safety of my own home, there’s no denying that Jools is at the helm of a veritable national treasure.

Sadly, the opening episode of series 37 wasn’t hiding any gems and was swamped by erstwhile dinosaurs-of-rock the Manic Street Preachers, while the Klaxons and Mark Ronson each contributed their fair share of dirges to further sully the proceedings. From my experience as a viewer, it seems that bands I already really like tend to deliver stale, flat performances (The National can hold themselves guilty on this front), whereas whenever I’ve been thoroughly blown away by an astounding performance it’s always been by an act I’ve never heard of.

The last time this happened was at the start of the last series, when Yeasayer completely knocked me for six with their live version of Ambling Alp. Yeasayer are a band who’ve been loitering at the edges of my awareness for quite a while, but this was the first time I’d paid them any attention, and I dutifully went and bought their latest LP Odd Blood, only to be left feeling somewhat deflated. The record’s okay, don’t get me wrong, but the Later… performance had been amazing; yet another instance of a band who’re at their best when seen live, further proven, following some extra research, by their Later… performance in support of their previous album, All Hour Cymbals – the track 2080 sounds positively rubbish on record, but is a completely different beast when seen live. It would appear the art of delivering a good TV performance is a strange kind of alchemy, and one that’s completely distinct from the process of either recording or playing a regular live gig, and it’s one that Yeasayer have mastered with great aplomb.