live @ Black Cat 11.13.2000
Legendary BBC disc jockey John Peel once said that David Gedge wrote “some of the best songs of the Rock and Roll era” and while Peel was referring to the work Gedge did in his former band, The Wedding Present, the songs he has written for Cinerama, his latest project, are just as powerful, though in a softer way. The major difference between Cinerama, who headlined the Black Cat Monday night, and the Wedding Present, are dreamy film-score textures, which take precedent over the clanging, hyper-strummed electric guitars Gedge used to favor. The group’s 50-minute set Monday worked well because the quintet delivered from a middle ground between guitar bluster and swirling keyboard backdrops.
Gedge’s main partner in Cinerama is his longtime girlfriend Sally Murrell, who added keyboards and counter-point vocals to tales of romantic desire and sexual attraction like “Your Time Starts Now” and “Apres-Ski”. Drummer Kari Paavola kept things sprightly, allowing Gedge extend the lilting chorus of “Lollobridgida” and “Dance Girl Dance”, which he introduced as a “disco song”, but charged ahead in a Blur-like fashion. Gedge indulged his professed his love of John Barry film scores and Burt Bacarach heartbreak in songs like “Film”, but it was when he left those kind of sentiments in the lyrics and let the guitars talk---especially “146 Degrees” and “Because I’m Beautiful”---that Cinerama’s premise made perfect sense. The set’s peak came on the final number, a burning version of “Wow” in which Gedge and Simon Cleave scrubbed their guitars with ferocity, demonstrating a blend of mature songwriting and youthful guitar slash that, for a few minutes anyway, made John Peel’s assertion ring true once again.
Washington Post, November 2000
