Trashcan Sinatras concert review - Los Angeles

photo: Mort Shuman

Last Wednesday, Trashcan Sinatras played the penultimate show of their North American Tour at the Regent Theater in Downtown Los Angeles.

This jaunt featured the Scottish alt-pop band's most popular albums (1990's Cake; 1993's I've Seen Everything), performed front to back, with a smattering of other favorites. Lead singer Frank Reader, rhythm guitarist John Douglas and lead guitarist Paul Livingston were all seated. 

The excellent concert had the vibe of an old "MTV Unplugged" episode as Reader and Douglas told stories about many of the songs, including how the group formed in the late '80s in Irvine and later moved to Kilmarnock when they had a private recording studio.

Because of the magnificent albums' dense and frequently atmospheric sound, hearing the tunes in unadorned fashion allowed fans to take in more of Reader's stream-of-consciousness lyrics. On a personal level, Cake is one of my all-time favorite albums from the 1990s and I always thought it deserved far more attention than it received, even with alt-rock radio powerhouse KROQ/106.7 FM supporting the singles "Only Tongue Can Tell" and "Obscurity Knocks" and the videos on MTV's "120 Minutes."

In LA, they didn't dive right into the first and second CDs. Instead, Reader said the guys needed to "warm up a bit." So they opened with gentle reverie of "Got Carried Away," off 2004's Weightlifting and then continued with two upbeat selections from the same release: "All the Dark Horses" and "Freetime." What came next was a pleasant surprise: "How Can I Apply," from the 1996 import-only effort A Happy Pocket. 

Once TCS began the Cake tunes, fans sang along loudly to "Obscurity Knocks" and "Maybe I Should Drive" as Reader delivered them with intensity. Besides those standouts, "Circling the Circumference" and "Only Tongue Can Tell" also came across strongly in the stripped-down format. At the halfway mark in the original LP running order, Douglas quipped, "this is where you turn the vinyl over."  

Following an intermission, the musicians played "Hayfever" and "Bloodrush" with as much fervor as the recorded versions. Reader got a couple brief respites from singing when Livingston and Douglas took rare vocal spotlights on "The Perfect Reminder" and "Iceberg" respectively. The highlight of this portion was "One at a Time," where the mild-mannered Livingston rocked out a bit on electric guitar. 

Instead of leaving the stage for an encore, TCS stayed put and did "All Night," a buoyant song from the most recent studio album Wild Pendulum and the title track to Weightlifting. By the end, longtime enthusiasts were treated to a mesmerizing evening.  

All Night in America, the TCS' first official live CD+DVD, recording during last year's career-spanning acoustic tour stop in Los Angeles, is available through www.pledgemusic.com

Upcoming full band tour dates:

July 20 Newscastle, England - Newcastle City Hall
July 21 Edinburgh, Scotland - Edinburgh Castle
July 22 Manchester, England - Manchester Apollo
July 23 Birmingham, England - Birmingham Symphony Hall
July 25 Nottingham, England - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
July 26 London England - London Apollo
July 28 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowlands
July 29 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowlands

*all supporting Del Amitri