The first set is blessed by the caustic "Everybody Knows", a compelling "Who by Fire" and anti-war track "Lover Lover Lover".
Fierce, high-kicking chorus girls, they are both eye candy and magnificently impenetrable, whether singing along to Leonard Cohen's "Lover Lover Lover" or sweeping through repetitive, full-bodied phrases.
"Lover, Lover," the breakout single from Mr. Niemann's first album, still sounded breezy here, perfectly in keeping with tunes like "For Everclear," which could have passed for a novelty country song of the 1950s.
At one point he and his grizzled-looking band threw in a few bars from Metallica's "Enter Sandman," maybe as a show of rebellion, but by and large he appeared to be in retreat, right up until he closed with "Lover, Lover," his most popular song, and his most tepid.
Oh my, I bet you know a thing or two about how to give – or recognise – a look of love, Simon; how is anyone supposed to concentrate on the art history lesson with you going all Mr Lover Lover on us (to be honest I've always thought of Schama as more Shaggy than ABC's Martin Fry).
Lexicon Poëticum defines this name as "Livæ amator, vitæ amans, vitæ cupidus", "Líf's lover, lover of life, zest for life") —female and male respectively are two humans who are foretold to survive the events of Ragnarök by hiding in a wood called Hoddmímis holt, and after the flames have abated, to repopulate the newly risen and fertile world.
