FAITH NO MORE : "King For A Day" (live Lisbon 08 July 2010)


Reunion. Reformation. Ugly words. Images of reprocessed facsimiles of the past thrown together by money and a recession-hit pension fund to drag their sorry asses out once more into the monkey cage to debase and trade off the memory with a sort-of recreation that isn't quite as good. Remake. A Sequel. That's what some of these reunions are ; chasing the law of diminishing returns for cash.

In the absence of any official release of their 2009-10 "Second Coming" tour - one which saw the band performing with a fluency more than surpassing their original incarnation - this will have to do : a 2.0, basic, and broadcast-sourced recording of a show in Lisbon over a year into the tour. It's mystifying to me - the band were better, and stronger, on this tour than the original 1987-97 era, so why these shows haven't yet been documented undersells Faith No More's well deserved reputation and popularity. This DVD is a full show filmed for Portugese television, and is presented without frills : the picture is occasionally blocky, the sound not tweaked in post-production, and an intrusive logo in the top left corner of the screen. Be aware you aren't getting a sanitised heavily-edited and immaculate presentation.

But the performance itself? FNM deserved their status as innovative, original, and loved exponents of weirdness in rock.

Cutting across many genres, the only thing you could say with any certainty is that you didnt know what was coming next – be it a cover version of an old movie theme, a country & western ramble, or a death metal interlude. Often in the same song. (These tendancies were later taken to ludicrous, and absurd extremes by frontman Mike Patton's other bands : the diverse Mr Bungle, and Fantomas – who specialised in jazz-metal with wildly fluctuating tempos at unpredictable intervals).

Faith No More's legendarily diverse influences and personalities resulted in the bands unique, odd sound. It also tore them apart with clashes of direction. No band compromised more – or less. Every note was hard won. Their return then, was wildly unexpected and highly anticipated by the few that have long memories.

In traditional style, expect the unexpected. There's no sign of expected crowd pleasers “We Care A Lot”, “A Small Victory”, “Richochet”, “Falling To Pieces”, et al. Yes, some hits were present and correct – and greeted as long lost family members. But also, and more than that, there was no sense that this was anything other than a determined attempt to live up to, and possibly succeed, the legacy.

Sure, I've seen, lazy, reformations. Aging, Fat, bald, tuneless yelps by protobands made half of tribute acts and the rest of jobbing session hacks. I was embarrassed just being there, let alone for the bands themselves gamely trying to pretend they had even the slightest hint of relevancy.

Made of the final original line up of the band – no replacement salaried nobodies here – the band had returned ; not reformed, but reunited. And whilst the t-shirts may have faded and the records not been played and the memories grown old, in a second everything comes back.

As if preserved in amber, Faith No More have hardly aged. There's flecks of grey in the drummers beard, and the guitarist has a goatee : aside from that, everything is as it was. The songs sound as sharp, and committed with as much passion as ever. Mike Patton throws himself around the stage with the same vigour he did 20 years ago – a rag doll possessed by music, listening intently, ears buried in a feedback bin, playing a loudhailer as if it were a symphony of looped feedback. Mike Bordin pounds the drums with a passion I haven't seen in 17 years. A few years ago I caught him playing drums for Ozzy, and he looked 1% as bothered then as he does here. John Hudson on guitar meanwhile seemed lost in his own world. Bill Gould bouncing like a demented loon. Roddy Bottum fierce in concentration.

And despite some obvious easy hits missing, it never felt as if the band were being delibrately obtuse until the final encore : the majestic, glacial “Carolho Valodor” which baffles the set and ends with a whimper. If anything took the air out of their return, it was that almost everyone was wondering when “We Care A Lot” was going to be played until it dawned that it was never going to appear. Still, Faith No More never did what you wanted, and that is what made them so special.
- posted by Mark @ 11:17 pm