Television, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Tuning in on another channel

It all depends on when you tune in. Wander into a Television gig at the wrong moment, and you're in for a shock. "Wow," you might find yourself thinking, "Tom Verlaine's really let himself go. He looks like a bag lady." Only when the vocals begin would you realise that it's actually the august curator of the 2005 Meltdown season (of which this gig forms one part): Patti Smith, standing on one leg like a beatnik flamingo, jabbing bony fingers into the air and reciting poetry while Television, led by the real Tom Verlaine, play freeform impro-jazz behind her.

It all depends on when you tune in. Wander into a Television gig at the wrong moment, and you're in for a shock. "Wow," you might find yourself thinking, "Tom Verlaine's really let himself go. He looks like a bag lady." Only when the vocals begin would you realise that it's actually the august curator of the 2005 Meltdown season (of which this gig forms one part): Patti Smith, standing on one leg like a beatnik flamingo, jabbing bony fingers into the air and reciting poetry while Television, led by the real Tom Verlaine, play freeform impro-jazz behind her.

But whenever you switch on to Television, be it in concert or on record, they'll take you unawares. Me? I left it late. Television was always one of those names you heard dropped by the terminally hip. This the sort of thing, of course, that can give a band a bad reputation, and actually deter you from investigating them: nobody wants to wear their older brother's hand-me-downs, nobody wants the previous generation's superior taste rammed down their gullet.

Nevertheless, here I am, and here they are - the classic line-up of Tom Verlaine (now looking like Christopher Walken sketched by Edvard Munch), Richard Lloyd (as innovative a guitarist, in his own way, as Robert Fripp), Fred Smith (bass) and Billy Ficca (drums) - and, finally, maybe it's that Television time in my life.

There is still a lingering sensation of wallowing in someone else's nostalgia, of gatecrashing someone else's party (not that Television could ever be accused of being a "party" band), and - it's seldom that I can say this nowadays - I am comfortably the youngest person in the auditorium. But I'm starting to understand why this band are hailed so highly, and by so many.

Television are the sort of band whose greatness is tenuous and contingent, visible only in certain lights. It's a brittle, fragile sort of brilliance: knock two of their songs together, and they'd tinkle into a pile of glass splinters.

Their immediate value is not obvious or ostentatious. It has nothing to do with being post-punk progenitors (in fact, Television sound utterly out of step with other relics from their era), nothing to do with changing the face of music or influencing a whole sub-genre. Indeed, for such a landmark band, they've had remarkably few direct imitators (the only band I can think of who ever sound exactly like Television are ol' Johnny Horseface and his Razorlights, and let's face it, they're no offspring to be proud of).

Not only were Television closer to Wire than they were to the Ramones, Television were closer to Miles Davis than they were to the Ramones. Listen to the Television album which is revered in the most hushed of tones, Marquee Moon, and you will hear punk music deconstructed, the rock'n'roll atom split open, its neutrons flying freely (at 10 minutes long, the title track was, when released as a single, an act of possibly-conscious heresy against the short, sharp punk orthodoxy).

They moved freely between high and low art to boot, in the manner of an aural Lichtenstein. Witness the use of girl-group backchat on "Venus": "Did you feel low?" "No, not at all." "Huh?" - which only sounds cooler when the blokes doing it are 50 years old.

If the world didn't know what to make of Television two or three decades ago, very little has changed, and the sight of four middle-aged, artsy-looking guys in comfortable Sunday-wear playing such challenging, sometimes indigestible music is perhaps more baffling than it was when the same four guys were artsy-looking young students.

Towards the closing minutes of tonight's finale, "Marquee Moon", something even weirder happens. Side-on to the mic, Verlaine begins making strange wordless noises. Barks, chokes, yelps, gasps, squeaks. It's painful viewing, akin to seeing a deaf-mute child attempting to make himself understood.

As Television unstrap their instruments, saunter off into the wings and the house lights come up, there are plenty of other artsy-looking middle-aged guys - myself included - who are too taken aback to stand up.

Until, slowly, still bemused and bewildered, we wander back across the Thames, and back to the 21st century, back to a place where things make sense.

s.price@independent.co.uk