Another show, another photo of a bridge; this time the impressive spine of the Hammersmith flyover.  I bought Monkeyman a pair of tickets to see Bjork in the Apollo for Christmas.  I’d have been a bit gutted if I wasn’t invited along, especially in hindsight: imagine if I had to put up with Monkeyman going on and on about how brilliant it all was, and how beautiful she looked and how there were these people with these funny clothes and blah blah blah.  I would have had no option but to run outside screaming, and to try to set fire to myself; although I would have failed due being sodden through with tears.

Leila Arab had the unenviable support slot, but she started – in my view, and only in my view it seemed – pretty promisingly.  She dug some scratchy old records out of her bag, and commenced a neat Philip Jeck-like set, all crackle and ghostly voices, building to a pleasingly abrasive mix of frequencies.  As I said, others didn’t agree; they booed, she gave them the finger, they threw stuff, and she gave in and played some records they knew – Bowie, Snoop Dogg, The Stooges.  What a waste, not least as we didn’t get to hear very much from her forthcoming album Blood Looms and Blooms.  She fell flat on her face too as she tried to exit, and then they put on what sounded like a Sublime Frequencies compilation, which seemed to calm the situation amazingly quickly.  Have they tried this in Darfur?

Bjork bounded on stage wearing a rainbow and a spectacular hairpiece amongst an entourage of Icelandic flag-waving musicians, and with flames shooting up from the corners of stage they began the show with a raucous “Earth Intruders”.  Much of the set that followed was to be drawn from Volta and, more surprisingly, Homogenic.  Maybe the Medulla and Vespertine songs were felt to be too “small” for this big show, and Post and Debut (from which she played nothing, no “Human Behaviour”, no “Anchor Song”, no “Venus As A Boy”, no “Play Dead”, gaaaah!) perhaps belong to another world by now. I’ll post the set list in the comments below to avoid spoiling it too much for anyone going on Sunday.

Or maybe it was the presence of Mark Bell on the Powerbook which tilted it in favour of these works.  He was the one after all who fashioned the skittery undercarriage of “Joga”, and the crunchy matrices of “Pluto”, the latter of which had the brass section slam dancing stage front.  Power Brass Wonder Brass, as I think now know they were called, did a fine job, particularly when refitting the ravishing “Bachelorette” to run without strings.  I did feel a little sorry for Chris Corsano on drums (that will be the great Chris Corsano, the same Chris Corsano who we remember facing athletically off against the likes of Noah Howard, Keiji Haino and Thurston Moore), who did his best to wriggle some space for himself amongst the hullabaloo, trying to play some rhythms that didn’t need to be played on the likes of “Pagan Poetry”.  However, for most of the show, having him up back was like using a Ferrari to drive to the shops for a pint of milk and some batteries.  And as if the stage wasn’t packed enough already, we got Toumani Diabate on fleetingly to play some joyfully beguiling kora on “Hope” and a shy-looking, shabbily-clad Antony to provide some spine-tingling Simone-like vocals on a superb, slow-burning “Dull Flame Of Desire”- welcome, both, but how I wish they had managed to fit in some solo shows on this tour.

Bjork herself was on giddy form, leaping cat-like around the stage.  In fact during a thoroughly unexpected “Cover Me” I think she may even have pretended to be an animal, fingers up to her cheeks like whiskers, sniffing and scratching and all a- scamper.  She truly is a vocal tardis; I can’t imagine where those huge lungs fit inside that tiny frame – the huge, hollered climax to “Pagan Poetry” in particular nearly blew me to the rafters.  The dying screams of the now thoroughly detibetted “Declare Independence” hung in the air long after this sparkling artist had declared the evening over, and probably long after the last piece of sparkling tickertape that littered the stage by the end had been swept away.

(Oh and a special word of thanks to the goons down the front who spent the entire show standing on the barricades down the front shining torches into the crowd trying to stop us taking a couple of photos: we spent money to see Bjork, not your repulsive sweat-soaked bellies.  Get a job you like, you cretins, or at very least one you are good at).

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