I went with my brother to see Tricky play Maxinquaye, in full, in London on Friday. I really wish I hadn't gone as so many illusions were shattered. Tricky was shambolic and kept disappearing offstage every 5 minutes, in fact he was on stage possibly 20% of the time. Martina Topley-Bird was fantastic...when she was onstage. She also seemed to need quite a few loo breaks, leaving the house band basically to jam on their own. We also had a completely inexplicable deviation from the album with his little brother and chum rapping for 15 minutes. Now, we all want to see our brethren do well but surely there's a time and place. A Maxinquaye retrospective is definitely neither.
The coup de grace was delivered at the end with an invitation for the crowd to join him on stage for a guitar dirge-led sing-song. It was awful to think we'd paid £35 plus the travel costs to see a p*ss-poor Maxinquaye finish with a bunch of trustafarians filming themselves for Youtube's benefit and the ever-dwindling audience who had voted with their feet and left. I kid you not, at one point there was a heavy metaller head-banging centre-stage. It really is not how I want to remember this most seminal of albums and an essential part of the Bristol trip-hop holy trinity of Massive Attack / Tricky / Portishead. Apparently the entire tour has been like this and the rumours seem to be that he's struggling with some sort of problem. Maybe an explanation from someone associated with this debacle might go some way to rebuilding the love for him that I and others have lost with this tour.
Here he is in better times.
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