Live: Tindersticks @ Henry Fonda Theater, 3.13.09

Tindersticks
All photos by David Greenwald

Listening back to Tindersticks‘ fifth album, last year’s The Hungry Saw, the band’s exchange of late night cool for ’60s shuffling may not have been the greatest trade. But in their first Los Angeles show in five years, the band plunged deep into their old cocktails and turned the venue into a gentleman’s club — the smoky, pre-stripper variety. Even recent songs such as “The Flicker Of a LIttle Girl” surprised the seated crowd with an energy both evocative and unexpectedly cathartic — and apparently moving enough to egg a couple of audience members into a fight between the folding chairs. Shit’s emotional. Live, Tindersticks have a strength and quiet power not always evident on their recordings; at times on Friday, they shared space with Calexico’s Southwestern wanderings and the National’s brooding misanthropy. Tindersticks are, of course, an antecedent to both bands, and the show was a sorely needed reminder from the shadowy act. Hopefully it won’t be another five years till the next one. More photos after the jump — as usual, click ’em for hi-res.



Tindersticks – “The Flicker Of A Little Girl” mp3

***

Click below for more Concert Photos and reviews.