Following an invitation to regroup for All Tomorrow’s Parties, New Zealand icons The Clean returned to Europe for the first time in more than two decades. SIMON MCKENZIE reports on their post-ATP shows in Amsterdam and Hamburg.

Amsterdam Paradiso, May 22

The Clean are one of New Zealand’s most enduring bands, even if they haven’t been officially together since their early-’80s heyday. Their reputation was based on a remarkable series of singles and EPs, but also on the fact that they were seldom less than stupendous live.

After splitting in 1982 and reuniting in 1989 to record and tour Australia and Europe, they have reformed every two or three years for shows in New Zealand and the US, where drummer Hamish Kilgour now lives. They haven’t played Australia since ’89, although singer-guitarist David Kilgour has toured his excellent solo material on the east coast several times in recent years. This month saw them return to Europe for the first time in more than two decades after Pavement – who cite The Clean as a major influence – invited them to play at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Minehead, England.

Their first port of call on the continent itself is in Amsterdam, at the converted 19th-century church building that now houses the Paradiso. The Clean are playing an early set in the Paradiso’s kleine zaal, or small hall, which holds about 250. They take the stage about 7pm on a sunny summer evening in the Dutch capital, and Hamish Kilgour says how much he has enjoyed sitting out the back of the venue watching people sail up and down the canal in boats, canoes and 44-gallon drums – anything that floats. From the opening notes of the ominous instrumental ‘Fish’, it’s evident that The Clean still float, too.

The sporadic nature of their touring and their improvisational playing – with intros and outros often left open-ended – means that they rely more on their innate chemistry than rehearsals to get them through songs that are more than three decades old. The jangly classic ‘Anything Could Happen’ is brought to glorious life, with David Kilgour’s lone guitar sounding fuller than most four- or five-piece bands can manage. A careering ‘Side On’ is given an electric charge by his soloing, as opposed to the skittery acoustic sound on the recorded version. Their most elastic live number, the instrumental ‘Point That Thing (Somewhere Else)’, is given a new, softer intro but soon gathers tremendous force, Robert Scott (also of The Bats) underpinning the Kilgour brothers’ pummelling of their respective instruments with a propulsive bassline. It finishes with a delightful squall of guitar feedback before David Kilgour switches to keyboard for ‘Loog’, the opening track from last year’s Mister Pop.

Two more keyboard-driven numbers follow, ‘Whatever I Do Is Right’ and ‘Outside The Cage’, which packs a far greater punch than the version on the Modern Rock LP from 1994. Hamish Kilgour chants hypnotically beneath Scott’s vocals, while David Kilgour coaxes an elemental force from the keys that belies the ease with which he appears to play. It’s this casual chemistry that makes them so unmissable – one minute David Kilgour is making a bad drummer joke about his brother and the next The Clean launch into a storming version of ‘Getting Older’, with its killer ascending/descending riff threatening to lift the roof off the old church and startle the stoners in their canoes.

An imitation encore (“We’ll only pretend to walk off stage and then we’ll just play another song,” says Scott) brings out their debut single ‘Tally Ho!’, with the ebullient riff played on guitar rather than keyboard. It’s a deliberate choice in Amsterdam but the following night in Hamburg, at the tiny Gruener Jaeger, there isn’t room on stage for the band’s single keyboard even though it’s a small one.

Hamburg Gruener Jaeger, May 23

“DJs seem to be very important here,” says Hamish Kilgour, referring to the fact that there is a spacious booth behind the band while they’re left with little room to move and a changed set list.

It’s sold out and hot inside the cramped venue, and David Kilgour spends a fair portion of the set sitting on his Vox amp as a much more low-key show takes shape. ‘Crazy’ from 2001’s Getaway unfolds at a leisurely pace, followed by a wonderfully nuanced ‘Hold Onto The Rail’.

While the show is less visceral than the one in Amsterdam, it’s every bit as beguiling. Despite Scott and David Kilgour requiring notes reminding them of the chords for ‘Wipe Me, I’m Lucky’ off 1996’s Unknown Country, it’s a compelling version. ‘Someone’ is less frenetic than its recorded version on 1989’s Vehicle LP, but flourishes of inspired guitar work elevate it beyond its relatively simple structure. Kiwi music nuts are then given a rare treat as The Clean launch into a cover of Bailter Space’s ‘In Love with These Times’. Played at breakneck speed, it harks back to 1987 and Hamish Kilgour’s time as Bailter Space’s drummer.

Another mock encore exit leads to a fluid bass riff from Scott that becomes ‘Too Much Violence’, Hamish Kilgour speak-singing while notes from his brother’s guitar shimmer beneath the mirrorball. It’s a wonderful reinvention, though that’s not really surprising given the fact that this is a band who can be markedly different from night to night, let alone from year to year or decade to decade.

Unfortunately, it might be some time yet before they return to Australia. Outside Gruener Jaeger, Robert Scott says there’s nothing planned beyond going their separate ways after this tour ends in Spain. It might be years before they reconvene, but there’s as much chance of it happening in Australia as Europe. Here’s hoping.

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Simon McKenzie is a former editor of Brisbane’s Time Off magazine (1993-1997) and now lives and works in Europe.