| Thursday, January 18, 2001 |
 | "In America we have sports. In Britain you have sport.
In America we go into drug rehabilitation. Over here you go into drugs rehabilitation.
This is towards explaining that, whereas in Britain you have the gay male, in America we have....the male gaze."
Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson form one of the finest double acts in modern comedy, which is odd given that their stock-in-trade is heartbreak. He endlessly wry, perfectly poised and surprisingly tiny, she intelligent, enthusiastic and never afraid of the unselfconscious joy of performance. The kind of people New York will be populated by entirely in my Dr. Moreau-like utopia.
Or, to put it another way, the Magnetic Fields at the Lyric Hammersmith rocked beyond the telling of it. 2 days, 4 hours, 69 songs about love...just astonishing.
Best moment, barring all of it, had to be when, after a lengthy ovation and cries of "encore", the band returned to the stage, Merritt held up a hand for silence, leant into the mike, said "Stop clapping" in a tone of finality and walked off again. In most pop stars it would be pissy and annoying. From him it was perfect.
Also met Daniel Handler, but more on that later.
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