London The Venue

THE WAITRESSES special trayful of pleasure has kept me a keen customer since the many years past Akron compilation through to the ‘I Know What Boys Want’ single and up to the current Polydor album.

Their trip to our shores has been a moment worth waiting for but my first question on entering the Venue was where's the atmosphere?

This debut London g follows half-a-dozen others spread the length of the country. Unfortunately, though inevitably, it is earmarked as 'the special one’ and is complete with the full gory razzmatazz of the big event (yawn).

Photographers fill the front rows and there are even TV cameras cluttering up the arena. Such things nullify the possibilities of any special group/audience relationship. The visiting musicians become little more than prize exhibits be gawped at.

I tells ya, it just ain't natural, which for the Waitresses is a particularly sizeable shame. They don’t belong on any pedestal. They’d be more at in a sleazy two bit club where there is less all-round self-consciousness and a response has to be earned, not simply taken from a gathering of sycophantic poseurs.

Beneath the tinselled superficiality of the occasion, however, the Waitresses are very wonderful indeed. Their deep strength lies in those beautiful lyrics, revelations through obsessions with trivia, a gentle parading and hole-poking of various American dreams delivered with a selection of perfect poses by Patty Donahue who creates both pastiche and satire of nationality, role and gender.

The music is wholesomely palatable when it thrillingly skates around the gaping abyss of stadium rifferama. Trouble is, it sometimes gets top heavy with guitar raunch and fails right in, most noticeably during 'Jimmy Tomorrow' and the ominously titled 'Pussy Strut’.

Personalities emerge. Aside from the eye-watering Patty there is happy grinning mastermind Chris Butler holding the complete musical jigsaw together with his Fender.

Reedsman Mars Wiliams genially fools around with a sideshow all his own (at one point blowing wild animal squarks out of a giant-sized candlestick holder-like thing) although, annoyingly, at times overly play acting for the benefit of the encroaching cameraman.

Drummer Billy Ficca who once put the beat behind the twang in Television, locks Into solid pounding gear, sometimes breaking free with head-turning vitality.

Plus there's Tracy Wormworth, the cuddly-looking bass player whose enormously wide grey trousers will be talked about for Years to come.

Fond memories are Ms Donahue toying with my expectations by not singing the ‘what’s a girl to do’ line from 'Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful, in a soft tuneful lilt but dashing through it with a speedy croak. And Mr Williams assuming the role of rejected suitor in 'I Know What Boys Like’.

Both highlights were worth a handsome tip but the real payoff came mid set with 'Christmas Wrapping’, a total ear scorcher delving into a comparatively subdued but much more original and individual sound than the main body of material. It’s all about spending Yuletide (almost) alone and baking “the smallest turkey in the world”

Despite the falsity of the situation, the Waitresses were one of the treats of the year. Happy Christmas!