Monday 12/04/04 Auf der Maur @ Academy 3, Manchester

Bass players.  They’re a peculiar breed.  Just kinda slinking / stomping around in the background to the beat of the drum.  They’re also kind of anonymous too; I’m sure if Alex James from Blur, for all his 90’s pouting and head swishing, started a side band now, some of his mates would turn up at the Groucho Club and say “hurray”. 

This is not the case, however, if you are officially the coolest person to ever pick up a bass guitar.  And if you were in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins.  And if you were a dab hand at writing / performing your own material.  Basically, it’s not the case if you’re Melissa Auf Der Maur. 

To say MadM is fantastic tonight would be an understatement.  From the moment she swans onstage, just after her somewhat understated backing band, it’s obvious we’re in for quite a ride. ‘Lightning is My Girl’ is the opening salvo, and the barrage doesn’t let up through ‘Beast of Honour’, ‘Real A Lie’ and ‘Head Unbound’.

Doing her bit for commonwealth relations, Melissa then dedicates the whole gig to The Smiths, before delivering ‘Taste You’ so breathlessly it’s obscene (a song about oral sex, dedicated to her embarrassed parents, stood just to the left of Gigwise).

She really can do no wrong. Shedding her instrument, the ginger temptress is equally at home wielding the mic, fronting songs like ‘I Need I Want I Will’ with the snake hips of a female Mick Jagger.

The influences are all there, plain to see – the apocalyptic rock of Smashing Pumpkins, desolation of Kyuss, and riff-genius of Black Sabbath – it’s obvious, but mashed up so skilfully it’s like drinking the world’s greatest smoothie (!!!) (What the **** am I on about??!!? – answers on a postcard). 

Anyway, the encore entails an ace Failure cover, the superb last single ‘Followed the Waves’ and even a solo ‘Good News’ (the first song Ms Auf der Maur ever wrote, trainspotters). 

What more do I need to say? Buy the album, go to a festival just to see her, hope your next girlfriend is her; as on this form Melissa is simply Auf der Scale.

Photos by Stuart Antrobus