So the band that unleashed one of the bona fide classic rock albums of the past 35 years finally arrived in Ireland and appeared to a crowd of Holy Grail-seeking, demographically-correct men in their 30s and 40s. Womenfolk are in tow, of course, but let's be honest, a Television gig is mostly a High Fidelity guy thing. Perhaps it's the quivering guitar solos, or the sneer in Tom Verlaine's voice. Perhaps it's a sober validation of a halcyon past, or the portentous threat of imminent middle-age beset by fears and doubts of self-ability: hey, if these 50-something guys can still cut the mustard then maybe there's hope for me!
Whatever, there's an added poignancy from the pass-it-on news that Joey Ramone - cut from the same ripped and ragged New York cloth - has gone to the Great Punk Rock Gig in the sky. Whether this had an impact on the gig is difficult to tell. Television were as verbally uncommunicative as (legend has it) they've always been. But they still have the guitar solos, of course. To say that both Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd are at the top of their game is like saying that George Best was once a fairly good footballer.
The sound was on the money, too: fuzzy-toned and murky, complementing the raw edges of the songs. Tracks from the band's two studio albums, Marquee Moon (astonishing) and Adventure (doomed to cower forever in the shadow of its predecessor), were faithfully revised but not edited. The title track of the former record was reproduced as we had always hoped it would be: an intense extrapolation of concise notes that made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up.
And then Television switched off and went home. As we all did, satisfied in the knowledge that occasionally - just occasionally, mind - some songs really can be as good as the memories.
