About a month ago Bootsy flew all the way out to California, and upon her arrival had but one request of me – take her to a show. It wasn’t hard to pick Nouvelle Vague out of the bands playing that week. In fact, one of Booty’s first posts on the Muffin was all Nouvelle. We went to the show at the Henry Fonda in case you’re playing along at home.
It was pretty apparent that none of us attending knew as much about NV as we thought he had (or pretended to). First, I was totally expecting the show to be mellow and low-key. And second, it took us four songs to realize that the first band was NOT in fact who we had come to see (keep in mind NV plays strictly cover songs).
For those of you who are new to Nouvelle Vague, I give their live show a complete endorsement. Their set up is basically a ridiculously talented backing band with two crazy French chicks leading the show. And the Ying and Yang personality types of the two singers can be summed up as such: The blonde, slinky singer closest to where we stood performed an erotic 70s crazed romp the entire show. The brunette, shorter and with a lighter complexion, switched between leading punk movements to singing sweet solo ballads.
And the shorter of the two singers fell pretty hard mid-dancing. She commented afterwards that it was the first time she’d ever fallen on stage, and that LA was the place to do it. Fuck yeah it is!
They played almost entirely songs from their new album NV3. Once again you will be delighted to hear some amazing cover songs and some that you would probably just assume are originals. I won’t spoil you with the Violent Femmes song, but rather here are a couple of my favorites. And I am sure that I am now partial to the Sex Pistols cover, simply because they performed it with just a singer and a guitarist at the show – which blew everyone’s fuckin’ minds!
The other song I am throwing up is a David Gray cover which is rather timely with his return to album releasing imminent. And why not, let’s toss in the originals to give you an idea of how genius this band is. Actually, here is a quote from Wikipedia that sums it up:
The various female singers on Nouvelle Vague only performed songs they had never heard before, to ensure that each cover would have a unique quality.
Nouvelle Vague – God Save The Queen
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Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen
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Nouvelle Vague – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
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David Gray – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
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And as Foote and Train would say, Bonus!! Here is the new track from David Gray’s upcoming album, Draw The Line.
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Hi. I don’t know if you meant to post the original or not, or if it matters, but if you like “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” you should track down the 1981 original by Marc Almond and Soft Cell. It’s stunning. Staggering, even. So good, in fact, there might not be a need for a second or third version.
Cheers.
Steven – nice catch. Sorry, I guess I was in high school when I had that White Ladder album by David Gray and I thought it was an original. I guess I should do a little more research next time I get into the realm of covers.
Here is the song though, pretty rad! (I think I still like the Nouvelle Vague one though)
Soft Cell – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye