The Church : Live@The Metro

metro montage.jpg 22 K
Photo and montage by Matt

There's also a page about the two live concerts at which this was recorded.

Until the album is actually released this page will be a collection point for news. Upon its release I'll change this to the more usual album format that I use on the other pages and move some of this info out to other pages.

December 2nd 1997
Marty tells me that nobody has yet had the time to listen to the tapes. The live video has been cancelled, so keep your fingers crossed that they like the sound better than they liked the pictures :-(

October 19th 1997
Not much to report except that the first concert was recorded on the 17th and Steve's lyrics in "Two Places At Once" and the start of "Destination" may need some patching up. Steve announced that the album will be available in about a month but I'm told this is unlikely.

Set List and Transcribed Banter

Thanks to Hayden for sending this in
For the benefit of those who couldn't get to the show I've set out the set list from the first Metro performance on the 17th, together with SK's comments (tidied up a little bit) between songs:

1. COLUMBUS thanks a lot/thankyou/is it loud enough/is it loud enough/yeah/you beautiful people/comedown

2. COMEDOWN thankyou/thankyou/we're recording a live album tonight/ so um pretend [audience loudly screams and cheers]/thats it/thats it/we want alot of that/thankyou/yeah/even if you don't mean it/lets have an interlude

3. AN INTERLUDE thankyou/can we pretend its the entertainment centre for the benefit of the live tape/[in an American accent] can you hear us up the back?/now we're gonna have a walk down memory lane/now with this one

4. BEL-AIR thankyou/thanks

5. RIPPLE thanks alot/thanks alot/are gonna have a gap while we turn our tape over, is that right?/and we've got a juggler/juggler is gonna come on for a while/this is one we've never played before/[someone shouts out to SK] what?/okay

6. DOME whats happening with the out track?/we are changing the tape/[someone screams out to SK] you know you shouldn't do that to you larynx/its very dangerous doing that/I can hear you've got a beautiful voice/I don't think you should spoil it by screaming like that/imagine if you were standing there and someones going [SK mockingly shouts out in a retarded manner] in your ear all night/the person next to you is going to sort of .../yeah/alright we're gonna do this next one now/are we ready/yeah/okay

7. NSEW thankyou

8. OLD FLAME

9. HOTEL WOMB thankyou

10. UTMW (Marty mucks up one of the chords in the intro and so the band restart the song)

11. DAY OF THE DEAD thankyou/thanks/thanks alot/yeah/we appreciate that [the clapping and cheering]/we do

12. DESTINATION (the opening verse: "our documents ... I've forgotten the words/what does it matter/I'll make up some new ones/in the space between our houses ...")

yes/thankyou/thanks very much/beautiful people/you ... you are beautiful people/I mean that most sincerely/mean that most sin .../whats that song?/I mean that most sincerely/[someone shouts out a response] no it wasn't Rocky Mountain High/you making ... you're not having a go at John Denver are you?/have we turned over the tape again/yeah, we really are recording a live album and we've run out of tape so we're just putting another spool on/oh stop you're yelling out/you'll be able to pay about thirty bucks for it in about a months time/you'll be able to say to your mother, thats me going [SK mockingly shouts out in a retarded manner]/how are we going down there/okay, we're gonna do another song for you now/this ones really sensitive so don't/[someone shouts out] could you not do that during this one, please/thanks/yeah, it would be better if you didn't I reckon

13. TWO PLACES AT ONCE (the intro really does sound alot like Aussie Crawls "Dont Be So Reckless")

14. ALMOST WITH YOU [SK starts performing some jazz improvisations] this is gonna be called 'on free form jazz improvisation' on the record/[further improvisation to which Tim joins in] twenty first schizoid man/cats foot/eye/claw/you surge and scream for more/paranoias poison door/twenty first century schizoid man

[PK swaps guitars with MWP and says something like] you need you're guitar fixed ... sounds good though.

15. GRIND thankyou

16. ROMAN thankyou/we're gonna do one more/[someone shouts out]yeah, I hope this is the one you wanna hear

17. REPTILE thankyou/goodnight

18. MYRHH we're going all the way back to the beginning now/all the way back to the beginning

19. HEARTBEAT

20. TANTALIZED thankyou/thankyou/[SK singing]back along the track for a little green bag gotta find [I couldn't make the rest out]/what is that song about?

21. CONSTANT IN OPAL

22. IS THIS WHERE YOU LIVE goodnight/come back on the 31st when we do the other side of the record

I hope this helps fill the gap of some who couldn't be there for what was a memorable show. The highlight of the night for me was PK's guitar. He truly is an indispensable element of the Church.

Suggested Album Names

Since this project is in limbo I'm not going to take any more suggestions till it's resuscitated.

Marcelo has what I reckon is the best name yet...

One Night At The Stage

But he also suggested

Aaron Hirota

I would like to suggest "A Gathering Among Friends". I feel this is appropriate for a group which would produce a live album for its fans and friends.

Other names received recently include :

"Indoctrinated", "Our Daily Bread", "Interplay", "Time Being Live", "You're never listening", "Of Hermits and Hookahs....","Departing Spirits (With Ringing Ears...)", "Night Of Light", "Hypnogogic Tea", "Ernst's All-Nite Diner", "Night Of The Chameleons", "Succubus Sister", "Return To The Wood",4 Frozen Red Dwarfs Grind it out, Lyrics for memory loss, ROMAN INTERLUDE in the DOME, Is it Loud Enough ? , Opal Mining, Not one Song from Seance, Hey They Look so Pale

Doreen Cole

I think an appropriate title for the album can be taken from their song, "Welcome" from the MATS album. The lyric goes, "_________________, We welcome you . . ." which then goes on and on throughout the song filling in the blank with various names. I think the title could actually look like "________________, We Welcome you." Thus inviting anyone to fill in the blank with whatever name they feel like.

Eve Emshoff

My suggestion for the live Church album name is Worship. It has been for a long time, actually, whether or not for a live album, but I think it's well suited for a live album, particularly if this one of the last things they record. (I hope not)

Mike Fulmer

In the vein of double meanings, how about "Rolling the Joint".

Monica Green

The Church - Congregation

Congregation defined by Oxford Dictionary as Collection into a crowd or mass; assemblage; body assembled for religious worship or to hear a preacher; body of persons regularly attending a particular church, etc.

Seems to me this fits a live Church concert recorded.

Nick Achilleos

I think "Communicated" is a good name for the live album, or even "Communion" as these words fit in with a "Church"-type theme.

Joseph Burns commented...

I'm personally glad that The Church has stayed away from titling their records in any sort of pun on the ecclesiastical nature of the band name. I hope they don't start now.

Brian

Joseph's comment got me thinking : "Yeah, it's not a religion...", so I reckon the album should be called "Just A Technique".

Blatherpop

1)See You In Your Sleep
2)Impressions of a Succubus
3)In An Ungulate Moment
4)The Unhallowed Moment
5)Almost Within You and Without You (sorry, George H.)
6)Disillusionment (or Disillusioned)
7)Live=Dead
8)One Night on the Stage (just like the marquee said)
9)Musicians Among the Spirits (or Spirants, or Spinsters, or Spirula, or Splinters, or Spleuchan, or
Spillage)
10)Hey There
11)Hierophant Day (Priests on Display)
12)Tokes, Magpies and Sorcery

JWalsh

the live adventures of the time beings.
songs from the disillusionists-(spelling)?
last rites

Ernst

What about 'Lost but Found' or 'Lost=Found' ?

Scott Lucas

Something church-like but non-denominational would sound good. My suggestions:

...and now for the album titles I hope they *don't* choose!

Kevin Gamble

Hmm...

Okay, i better stop now... :-)

Chris van der Wijk

The name has been mentioned before, and it will probably be mentioned a lot, but my first thought was just: RESTO:RATION.

But any title made up by S.K., M.W.P. or P.K., themselves will be better of course.

Batz

tho i am hesitant to say why... not good or bad... but the name that kept popping into my head was "CHARADE".... it actually fits for a lot of reasons, tho i'm not saying which

Marcelo

Maybe the live album title should be "Enter...The Church" (That's a reference to Vince Simonetti's review of the first Sydney Metro concert - "at 11pm 'Enter...The Church'".
Fergal
My suggestion for the live album title is: 'Life Speeds Up'. It works (for me) on a number of different levels, and would look good superimposed on an artistically blurred snap of the boys on stage. Perhaps they could include a second disk with the package, containing live recordings from the late eighties. The CD could have a mugshot of Richard Ploog embossed upon it, and be titled 'Live, Speeds Up' :-D

No, that would be cruel...

Milan

"Overstaying Our Welcome (Get Your Ya-Ya's Out)"

(Kilbey said "the Church overstayed their welcome" I hate to break it to him but has far as the mainstream is concerned, they overstayed their welcome after 1990. Since 1990, the group collectively and individually continued to progress musically. It just simply isn't a case like the Rolling Stones, who have made pretty much the same record over the past twenty-seven years.)

Matt Painter and Glenn Page

LIVE ALBUM NAME----->---->>---->>>> `Communicated'

Matt excellent, I think thats the best name, really cool, my vote for `COMMUNICATED'

communicate (ke-my¡´nî-kât´) verb
communicated, communicating, communicates verb, transitive
1. a. To convey information about; make known; impart: communicated the
new data to our office. b. To reveal clearly; manifest: "Music . . . can
name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable" (Leonard Bernstein).
2. To spread (a disease, for example) to others; transmit: a carrier who
communicated typhus.

verb, intransitive
1. To have an interchange, as of ideas.
2. To express oneself in such a way that one is readily and clearly
understood: "That ability to communicate was strange in a man given to
long, awkward silences" (Anthony Lewis).
3. To receive Communion.
4. To be connected, one with another: apartments that communicate.
[Latin commúnicâre, commúnicât-, from commúnis, common.]
- commu´nica´tor noun

Jack and Brian both reckon...
"Resurrected" or "Resurrection" would be a cool title, though it does labour the "Church = Religious Thing" point a bit.

Return to main album page.

This page's background is based on one by Alison Lorraine.