I arrived at the Bush Hall during the last song in Joe McKee's set and found the hall had people sitting at the tables at either side and a few other folk right at the back as far from the stage as they could get. I joined this group as Joe continued a very very slow song with lots of pauses that if he didn't have the crowd with him would have been full of heckles.
As the song drew to a close, he jumped off the stage and continued in the audience as close to people as he could get. It was interesting but I was glad to have only seen about 3 minutes of him as a full set might have been a bit much.
After the break, PETER BRUNTNELL came on and I have to say it's been quite a while since I last saw him play. Indeed, it was good to hear that he has an Anthology due out on 17th June on Peter Bruntnell at Loose Music called Retrospective as well as the fact that he is also opening for The Dream Syndicate at Dingwall's on the 24th May.
He opened with the very touching and sad Black Window about his father's death and how one of the last things he father saw from his hospice bed was a robin on the window ledge. The song was plaintive and moving and also rather poignant.
He kept the mood dark with a Cold Water Swimmer that sounded cold enough to have most of us shivering at the dark tones he was getting from his guitar. Black Mountain UFO (also the title track to his most recent album) was pretty chilling live even if the story he told before playing it was quite funny.
Then he was singing about the Reverend Jones: another dark toned song. Sea Of Japan was about as upbeat as he got and it sounded pretty cool.
For the final song of his set he brought up JOHN MURRY to harmonise on a delicious version of Pulled Apart. John's voice just helped to flesh out the sound and add another level of angst to Peter's sound. It was also clear that John was a huge fan, having (he later explained) once been forcefully ejected from a Peter Bruntnell concert for under-age drinking.
Soon enough it was time for the man that no one is claiming is the David Guetta of Downbeat, but whose astonishing album The Graceless Age has been met with almost universal praise for its beauty among the ruins of John's life and the redemption he's found in his music. Not to mention the support of the music community that means this tour is to promote the 2CD version of the album - the bonus disc featuring the original mixes by the late Tim Mooney who died shortly after the album's completion but before the acclaim began to roll in.
They opened with the heartfelt Photograph and the band sound that little bit tighter than they did at the start of the year. Just hearing John wringing the emotion in his voice on The Ballad Of The Pajama Kid as he sings about how he's gonna cry again as if each and every tear will be like another wound is a little bit magical.
|
Miss Magdalene, a new song, was sepulchral sad and twisted and took the band's mining of the downbeat to new heights (or should that be depths?). Either way, the guitars sounded majestically sad and mordant. This led to Things We Lost In The Fire. As John sang in his deep mumble of a voice about watching it burn, you could almost see the embers of memories lost that he was conjuring up before us.
Southern Sky is one of the stand-out songs both live and on the record and tonight was no exception on that front. It's a really beautiful version with the interplay within the band bringing out the imagery perfectly well. They then did a nice version of Sparklehorse's Maria's Little Elbows, a song they are fast making their own. It fits in perfectly with John's world view. California suddenly sounds like one of the bleakest places on earth on the song of that name.
John then dug back into his musical past rather than his personal one for a really good version of Boss Weatherford 1933 from his album with Bob Frank, World Without End. Not the darkest song on the album but as John sings about "waiting for the trap door to drop", the drama captured within is wonderful to hear.
Penny Nails is a very bleak song about the break-up of a relationship that seems to burn with intensity live. It makes sure we know John means every last word he sings. He closes the set with a cool version of No Te Da Ganas De Reir, Senor Malverde? and they leave the stage to a huge round of applause.
When John comes back on for the encore he is complaining that the band have forced him to play this song and he doesn't want to but somehow brings himself to play Yer Little Black Book solo. It's moving and touching and ever so slightly sad but of course not as sad as the heart rending closer of Little Coloured Balloons, the song he wrote about dying of a Heroin overdose and being brought back to life in the ambulance. A song it can't be easy to sing but the level of emotion and anger he brings to the lyrics brings the whole sorry tale to life and ends up making an awful story feel strangely uplifting.
John Murry is one of those acts that needs to be seen live, just to savour his intensity and the full power of his music.
|
