No Explanation

by chrome3d

In the december of 1994 I saw The Church acoustic duo gig in Helsinki. It was only SK and Marty at this point but I guess I was still excited to see them. Of course I was disappointed at first that it wasn´t the whole deal but a compressed version of the vision. I was expecting to hear many songs from Starfish (then the best album ever) and Heyday (then almost the best album ever). To my surprise the setlist was more scattered and there was songs quite evenly from many albums. This is only my vague memory as no "official" records have been preserved from their short tour in our arctic circles.

They played at least 3 or 4 songs from Remote Luxury. I can´t say if No Explanation was one of them. Probably not as it doesn´t seem to belong to the usual setlists of that era. I was wondering why they played so many songs from an album that I viewed as inferior to the many other albums. This was just my view as I probably hadn´t seen a single review of Remote Luxury in local music rags. There was no internet back then to see what people really think about it. 10 000 Miles, Constant In Opal, Shadow Cabinet...at least those were played. After the night I listened to Remote Luxury with new eyes and saw that these songs were excellent material for acoustic gigs. Compared to the stuff in Heyday and Starfish this stuff doesn´t lose much when it´s performed by just two guys with acoustic guitars.

SK was perhaps more focused at that night but I remember Marty being an energetic performer (Your enthusiasm's contagious...) and the 12-string acoustics chimed in an unresistable way just like they do in No Explanation. It doesn´t matter if they played it or not. Now, 15 years later, in my head they did and I see this song as something that they should have played then. It´s sunny and bright atmosphere is something that I remember from that time.