Conor Oberst – 26 February 2015

Conor Oberst

The Felice Brothers

The Corner Hotel

Thursday 26 February 2015

$65

Zoo Twilights – Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens

Saturday 28 February 2015

$40

Conor at the Corner

The offending footwear

The best concerts are those where the feeling from the show stays with you for several days, even years after the event. The high from Nick Cave’s Henry’s Dream shows at the Palace in 1992, The Cure’s Seaview Ballroom gig of 1981 or Public Image Ltd’s Seaview Ballroom show in 1984 come to mind. The same was true for this Conor Oberst show at The Corner Hotel, except the feeling that has stayed with me is less the exhilaration of the show and more the pain in my feet.

I don’t know if it was my footwear (funky suede boots), the hard floor of the venue, the unpleasant crush of people up the front that forced me to hold my ground, the length of the show (a good three hours if you count both bands), the general wear and tear of age (mine), or all of the above, but I write this two days after the show still fantasising about a foot bath.

Felice Brothers

I came to this show knowing very little about the Felice Brothers, except that I’d quite liked an album I’d once heard by Simone Felice. A few songs into their set I asked my friend John to point out Simone, only for him to inform me that Simone’s not in the band anymore. He added that Simone had written the group’s best songs and wondered aloud how many of them were still in the set. Judging by what I heard, very few.

While I quite like some of the acts that fit under the broad ‘alt-country’ umbrella, such as Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Wilco etc, I gravitate more to the ‘alt’ rather than the ‘country.’  The Felice Bros with their fiddle, piano accordian, washboard and overly earnest songs are a step too far for me. For a minute there I thought I was going to hear ‘Too-ra-loorali-attity’ type shanties.

That said, there was a powerful moment when the fiddle player joined the drummer behind the kit and bashed away at the tom tom for one song’s finale, and more excitement when Conor Oberst wandered on stage to share the vocals in one song. So it wasn't that they weren't any good, just not my thing.

But you had to hand it to them, 30 minutes later they fronted up again as Conor’s backing band, which meant that by the end of the night, they’d been on their feet for nearly as long as me.

Conor Oberst

I was there with my friends John and Kath. Kath is a true Conor obsessive, verging on fetishist. We were standing towards the front for Conor, but quite a few others decided to join us in that barging, pushing way that just makes everyone uncomfortable and in my case, a little resentful as well. It was so crowded I had to distort my body and use my elbows for traction, just to remain upright. I'd have been more comfortable in a rugby scrum.

The red curtain masking the stage opened on Conor and the Felice Brothers hunched over their instruments already into the first bar of their opening song. It was a gentle, breezy song, one of those epic lyrical numbers Oberst is known for, though not one with which I was familiar. A bit of subsequent research revealed it to be Napolean’s Hat from a Hurricane Katrina benefit LP, a great song and it was obviously something of a talisman because he was dressed for it, wearing a very broad brimmed hat. They followed this with Southern State, another relatively obscure Bright Eyes number.

Not many peformers can open with a brace of little known songs and get away with it, so it was a measure of his artistry, confidence, or the sheer number of songs he has to draw from that he was able to do so. The audience came to life however when the fiddle player launched into the familiar intro to Four Winds, an up tempo number that had the entire throng in the mosh pit bouncing, or at least lurching. The band then settled into a few tracks from the recent Upside Down Mountain album – opener Time Forgot, the jaunty Hundreds of Ways and Artifact #1.

By the time the band started playing Ten Women my level of discomfort had reached the point where it had become my focus instead of the performance, so I decided to retreat. The combination of the crush of people and my bloating bladder meant that I had to give up my vantage point and push my way through the scrum to the toilets. Easier said than done of course. So tightly packed was the crowd that I may have inadvertently engaged in several acts of physical intimacy in the process of escaping.

It would have been easier for a camel to squirm its way through the eye of a needle than for me to edge my way back into the huddle, so I took in the rest of the show from the back.

I feel I’m reasonably familiar with Connor Oberst’s oeuvre, but there were still half a dozen or so songs that I hadn't previously heard. I tuned in to Bright Eyes with I’m Wide Awake and It’s Morning in 2005, and such is his output that keeping up with new releases since then is hard enough, without delving into his back catalogue and the obscure one-off rarities. Still, I enjoyed hearing songs I hadn’t heard before.

Standing up the back – even in a room as small as the Corner Hotel – can make you feel a bit removed from the action, particularly as the pain in my feet was becoming acute. But I wasn’t overly bothered as I had a ticket to see him at the Zoo Twilights show a couple of nights later, so I knew I’d get my fill of Conor by the time he left Melbourne.

He dedicated Soul Singer in a Session Band to John Darnielle who he suspected to be in the crowd. John Darnielle is from a band called The Mountain Goats. I haven’t heard of the band, but I do know the brewery, and was enjoying a Mountain Goat Steam Ale on the night. The man in question was in the crowd, because he joined the band during the encore for a cover of Tom Petty’s Walls. Regardless of what you may think of Tom Petty (his music that is, not his hairstyle, which is nearly as enduring as Brian May's from Queen), I’m always a little bit frustrated when good songwriters perform cover versions. Just as I want to hear Dylan sing Dylan, I want to hear Conor Oberst sing Conor Oberst songs.

The highlights of this gig for me were Poison Oak from ‘I’m Wide Awake…’, Cape Canveral, which is probably my favourite Conor Oberst song, Lenders in the Temple and a lovely gentle version of Milk Thistle that he performed solo as the first song of the encore. It was so moving I nearly forgot the pain in my feet.

Setlist (Corner Hotel)

Napolean’s Hat

Southern State

Four Winds

Time Forgot

Hundreds of Ways

Ten Women

Artifact #1

Well Whiskey

Poison Oak

An Attempt To Tip the Scales

We are Free Men

Meadow of a Dream

Lenders in the Temple

Zigzagging Towards the Light

Cape Canaveral

Soul Singer in a Session Band

Method Acting

Easy/Lucky/Free

- - - - - - - - - - -  - -

Milk Thistle

Walls

Another Travelin’s Song

A Song to Pass the Time

Zoo Twilights - Riders On The Storm

A hot spell was coming to an end in Melbourne right on cue. It was the last day of summer and it was sizzling hot, but a thunderstorm had been forecast for the evening. When I say forecast, I mean storm warnings had been issued with the precise times they were likely to strike – no one living in or around Melbourne could have been under any illusions about the apocalyptic storm that was brewing, or what time it was going to hit. 

Surely that would be okay, because my ticket for the Zoo’s outdoor gig said that the show would go ahead ‘rain or shine’.  Kath and I were backing up our Conor gig from two nights previous, this time with the prospect of sitting on grass and not having to stand up for the duration.

We arrived lateish, grabbed a Mountain Goat Summer Ale (not as good as the Steam Ale) and found a stretch of grass with a good view while The Felice Brothers did their thing. The temperature was still positively balmy, but from where we were sitting we could see thickets of charcoal clouds massing on the horizon. Still the Felice Brothers played on.

Most people who know me will be aware that I’m not the most organised person. But if it was my job to organise an outdoor show, for example, and I had received quite precise forecasts about the time and severity of an incoming storm, then I’d possibly take a few precautions – like cut the support act short. Or cut out the break between the support and the main act, especially if the support act is doubling up as the back-up band for the main act. Or both!

Instead the Felice brothers played for what seemed like hours. No one seemed to be in a hurry, so we assumed that perhaps the organiser knew something about the path of the storm that we didn’t and that time wasn’t a factor.

After the usual break between bands, Conor came on and played Time Forgot, then Four Winds, which was appropriate, because at least four, but more like six or seven winds were just beginning to gust. Then a treat, he played one of my favourite songs, We Are Nowhere And It’s Now, that he hadn’t played two nights previous at The Corner Hotel. The elephants trumpeted during this song, which under normal circumstances might have been seen as an amusing brass accompaniment, but in this situation, probably just reflected the animal instinct for the approaching storm. The trumpeting could possibly have been translated as, ‘Run for your lives!’

Conor and the band played a couple more songs, Well Whiskey and Ten Women, but during Southern State bolts of lightning could be seen forking in the near distance, cracking open the night sky, bringing 'ooohs' and 'ahs' from those of us who could see it. For a few moments it was like being at a Kiss concert with special effects providing a dramatic backdrop to the music. Oberst, who wouldn’t have been able to see the storm, must have wondered what we were all gasping at. In this case, however, some mysterious person walked onto the stage and whispered in Conor’s ear, and then he abruptly announced that he’d been ordered to stop playing.

The show was abruptly cancelled and we were all ordered to leave as soon as possible. There was none of the ‘in an orderly fashion’ urging, it was more along the lines of ‘Quick –Get out now!’ It was as if they feared the big cats were about to escape, although in reality, they were probably more fearful of a law suit.

Kath and I were very disappointed, well outraged really. Even though the storm did hit with unusual intensity, it didn’t last very long. The worst was over by the time we got back to the car. I’d have been happy to ride out the storm and then get to the second half of the show. I’d rather sit on sodden lawn than be crushed in the mosh pit at the Corner Hotel. Instead, we were sitting in the car park and I couldn’t help but think Conor was right; ‘we are nowhere and it’s now’.

Sure we received a refund, but we couldn’t work out why the organisers hadn’t started the gig earlier or cut time from the support acts and the break, to at least minimise any time lost to the main act.

In the end I’m just glad we’d gone to the gig at The Corner Hotel and hadn’t put all of our Oberst eggs in the Zoo Twilights basket.

Check out the photo gallery of the gig, such as it was, published on What Sound Melbourne - photos by Lou Lou Nutt

http://www.whatsoundmelbourne.com/shots-conor-oberst-at-zoo-twilights-february-28th/

Setlist (Zoo Twilights)

Time Forgot

Four Winds

We Are Nowhere and It’s Now

Well Whiskey

Ten Women

Southern State

Neko Case – 1 March 2014

Neko Case

Dick Diver

Zoo Twilights – Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens

Saturday 1 March 2014

Rock and Roll Animals

Detail from Neko Case tour t-shirt - is she
leading an escape from the zoo?

One of my favourite albums of 2013 was Neko Case’s The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, which if nothing else, rivals Fiona Apple for ludicrously long album titles.

However, something about the title, the cover featuring Neko’s blurred image swimming in a dark, blood red backdrop with serpents scrawled in white highlights, plus a positive review in The Age were sufficient for me to pick up a copy. And I’m glad I did because I found a collection of beautifully performed, intelligent songs that continued to reveal new riches with each listen.

So when she was added to the Zoo Twilights bill, a series of 14 concerts over 14 days at the Melbourne Zoo, we decided to pick up a family ticket and take the kids for an alt-country family picnic. 

Her show at the Corner Hotel had sold out very quickly, but I was happy to be outdoors on a balmy evening. And besides, she is the perfect fit for a gig at the zoo with songs that seem written with a menagerie in mind: Lion’s Jaws, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, City Swans, The Tigers Have Spoken, I’m an Animal, Wild Creatures, Maybe Sparrow (okay, so not a creature normally associated with zoos, but drop a hot chip on the ground and they emerge soon enough). 

Our youngest son, Declan, ditched us when he was invited to attend the Melbourne Victory v Melbourne Heart soccer derby at AAMI Park, so our other son, Oscar, brought a friend along. Of course they chortled over the combination of a singer from a band called The New Pornographers plus another band called Dick Diver, the coalescence of entendre titillating their teenage minds.

Picnic Rug Politics

Animals are inherently territorial creatures, marking out their own space in a variety of ways. Some with a circle of urine, some through the threat of violent retribution, and then some with elaborately spread blankets and jackets. It’s fair to say that on this first day of Autumn all of these habits were on display at the zoo.

Through no particular plan we’d arrived right as the gates opened, so we joined the snaking queues of people all labouring like pack horses under their camp chairs, rugs, eskies and picnic baskets. Once in we found a reasonably large patch of unoccupied grass and spread our rug, knowing that other friends were joining us later, but there was sufficient room.

Our sudden occupation of this vacant space, however, threw the woman lounging nearby in her low-slung chair into a panic and she began to defend her territory like the Ukrainians in Kiev fearing imminent Russian invasion. There was much tut-tutting about her friends that were still to join her and much staking of the unoccupied zones with various picnic trappings. Quite possibly she laid a few landmines. Likewise, the man immediately in front of us warned of other people soon to arrive that would need to fit in.

Of course we politely ignored them and simply spread out our rug – there was plenty of room after all – and perhaps I’m a old-fashioned, but I believe that being there trumps not being there with respect to staking a spot. This woman, I thought, would be quite welcome to join her friends up the back if it turned out there wasn’t room for all of them here when they eventually showed.

Dick Diver

Local band Dick Diver was up first. I was keen to see Dick Diver as they had been receiving glowing praise for their second album, Calendar Days, and I also quite liked the albums of other bands in which its members feature; Lower Plenty and Boomgates. I’d even talked them up as a good reason to arrive early.

Their performance, however, didn’t quite match my pre-gig anticipation, but not all of the problems were necessarily of their making – the sound was overly loud and the mix was woefully unstable, even allowing for the breeze that had picked up.

It’s fair to say that the sub-genre with which they are associated – dolewave – doesn’t privilege vocal virtuosity or even prowess. Songs are often delivered without overt expression, but even so, the singing on this night was uneven. I didn’t mind so much, after all, I knew what I was in for, but my family and friends were looking at me suspiciously and wondering what I had gotten them into. Of course given that the mix was a bit of a mess, it’s possible they simply couldn’t hear themselves. I still quite liked some of their songs and I’ll listen out for their next record. 

Neko Case

The contrast was made all the more striking when Neko Case and her band took to the stage. The mix was crisp and clear, and the instrumentation varied, but mainly the shared vocals of Neko Case and Kelly Hogan were simply sublime. There was an effortless smoothness to their harmonies that was like honey.

Wearing culots and Converse sneakers, Neko is either over the idea of being a rock goddess or was simply treating the gig as a casual rehearsal for her forthcoming and, let’s face it, somewhat more prestigious shows at the Sydney Opera House and WOMAD. Or she was simply letting her flowing red hair do all the fashion heavy lifting for her. Kelly Hogan was wearing a billowing orange kaftan thing while the rest of the male band members exhibited varying degrees of dirty denim and hirsuteness.

What they may have lacked in costume design, however, they more than made up for with slick, tight playing. Jon Rauhouse’s virtuosity was on full display as he alternated between lap steel, guitar, banjo and trombone at various times. And the between song banter between Hogan and Neko was witty and playful and included shout outs to the big cats, a small flock of ibis that flew overhead and the bugs that inevitably swarmed around the lights and band members as dusk turned to dark.

Opening with This Tornado Loves Me, the rest of the set was mix of some of the more upbeat numbers from the new album; City Swans, Bracing For Sunday, Night Still Comes, Man and Ragtime plus a few of her other staples, Hold On Hold On, Nothing to Remember, Maybe Sparrow, Set Out Running and Calling Cards.

Nearly Midnight, Honolulu, perhaps the central song from the new album was left out, which was disappointing given its dramatic intensity and haunting frailty. It packs a solid a capella punch, but given the large number of children in the audience, it was probably understandable and unusually thoughtful that Neko spared them the song’s hurtful exhortation to ‘get the fuck away from me!’ although it seemed to be a sentiment she was aiming at the insect life that swarmed in a halo around her.

Perhaps they really were driving her crazy, because the band unexpectedly vacated the stage after barely 50 minutes. They returned for an encore and played Maybe Sparrow and Ragtime for which they replaced the song’s brass motif with scat vocals that we hummed as we walked past the newly awoken nocturnal animals and picked our way through the car park at the unexpectedly early hour of 9.00pm.

I’m sufficiently old to appreciate brevity in a performance. I hadn’t gone to see Springsteen at AAMI Park the week previous, partly because I’d seen him just a year earlier at Hanging Rock, but mainly because I doubted that I could stand for the customary three hours. Even so, I thought this gig was all too brief.

Check out this photo gallery from the gig: Blank Tape - Alana Mazurke

http://blanktape.com.au/photo-review-neko-case-melbourne-zoo-twilights-21032014/

Setlist (*some of these titles were relayed by a third party, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of all of the songs listed)

This Tornado Loves Me

Bracing For Sunday

Lion’s Jaws

City Swans

Calling Cards

Hold On Hold On

Night Still Comes

Nothing to Remember

Set Out Running

Man

- - - - - - -

Maybe Sparrow

Ragtime

Encore: Melbourne Heart won the soccer 4-0, but even though his team lost, Declan was happy with his decision to go to the soccer.

Dick Diver’s 2015 album, Melbourne, Florida is excellent - the vocals are still not the selling point, but it is a good album nonetheless.

Low - 4 April 2016

Low

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall – Melbourne Recital Centre

Monday 4 April 2016

$70

Low Key, High Quality

Low's setlist - courtesy of Steve Garrington

The universe, we all know, engenders balance; for every yin there’s a yang, for every high there’s a low and for every Marr there’s a Morrissey. So it was only appropriate that while the Melbourne International Comedy Festival raged in numerous venues across the city, Low should also be performing in town, if only to provide a counterpoint.

Low is married couple Mimi Parker on drums and vocals and Alan Sparhawk on guitar and vocals, plus Steve Garrington on bass guitar and keyboards. They produce immaculate, well-crafted songs that are enlivened by the intertwining harmonies of Parker and Sparhawk.

As far as contemporary rock music goes, Low pretty much put the ‘low’ in ‘low key’ and quite possibly in ‘slow’ as well. They are the maestros of minimalism, the admirals of adagio – their instrumentation is sparse and the tempo of their songs rarely quickens beyond walking pace, or a slow dawdle. Hence their status as the poster kids of the micro-genre ‘slowcore.’ Even to call them understated is to go a bit over the top.

I’ve come to the music of Low relatively recently. They’ve been aound for more than 20 years and have released 11 albums, yet I only became aware of them a few years ago when my friend Ralph lent me, In the Fishtank, the cd they recorded with The Ditrty Three. Then I heard The Invisible Way and bought their latest album, Ones and Sixes, which is truly sublime – one of my favourites from 2015. So when I heard they were playing at the Recital Centre, I booked a couple of tickets. They may not bode as a particularly explosive live act, but their intimate songs and intricate soundscapes are perfectly suited to the Recital Centre. Plus, you get to sit down there.

Low on stage in Melbourne - photo by Ralph Somma

I met Ralph in the foyer for a beer before the show. In the long term alcohol is technically a depressant, but in small doses it can act as a stimulant, so we thought a little pick me up before the show might help offset some of the band’s more sombre moments.

As we walked into the auditorium a giant digital clock projected on the wall at the back of the stage was counting back in time from just over nine minutes. Ralph pointed out that this meant we’d be treated to a video extravagazas, but preconditioned as we now are by terrorism and hijack films, there was something foreboding about watching a clock ticking backwards towards zero. I was steeling myself for impact. “All you innocents, make a run for it” as Mimi Parker sings in The Innocents.

On the other hand it was quite handy knowing exactly how long there was to go before the band came on. There might have been time for another beer.

The band took up their positions to general applause just ahead of schedule. This was followed by a moment or two of awkwardness, as there was still 30 seconds left to go on the clock. Do we keep clapping? Should they start early? It was like that fleeting awkward moment in a social situation between introducing yourself to somebody and finding a topic on which you can both converse. Happily the clock struck zero and the house lights dimmed, the projection commenced and Sparhawk scratched out the opening chug of No Comprende.

The sound in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall was utterly perfect. You could hear each separate instrument quite distinctly. It helped that there were only ever three going at the one time, but the sound still had density and filled the room.

Their stage was sparse, their minimalist principles extending to the setup. Sparhawk had one tiny amp and Parker had a basic drum kit. It wasn’t until they commenced The Innocents and I watched Parker striking her floor tom that I relaised what was weird about the drum kit – she had no bass drum. Nor did she have a hi-hat. Her kit was just a snare, ride and crash cymbals and a floor tom. It sounded great and really, it was all she needed to set up the rhythmic framework for each song. Later in the gig however, when Sparhawk triggered a programmed beat, I thought to myself that they could have achieved that sound by having a bass drum.  Possibly she doesn’t like to use her feet, and given that she is able to tap out the requisite rhythms with subtlety and skill, why should she. I’ve never seen a drummer play with such ease and economy – she could scroll through her Instagram feed while drumming and still not miss a beat.

The projection meanwhile, was showing the twig-by-twig assembly of the bare tree depicted on the album cover artwork for Ones and Sixes, from the Winter Drawings series by Peter Liversidge.

Low rock out - photo by Ralph Somma

I’ve emphasised the minimalist qualities and slow tempo of Low’s music, but I don’t want to give the impression that they are miserable sad sacks – their songs are not without humour or wry observation. Plastic Cup, the next song they played, is a case in point. It relates the tale of a person who, despite the worldy trappings of success, is finally reduced to pissing into a plastic cup. The song then follows the cup as it is dug up ‘a thousand years from now’ with its finders surmising about its original use, and concluding that it was probably the cup ‘the king held every night as he cried’ Okay, so not outright funny, and really, a bit depressing when you think about it, but perhaps we can at least say it is tragi-comic.

They followed Plastic Cup with On My Own and Holy Ghost, the latter beautifully sung by Mimi Parker, also from The Invisible Way. From there the set branched out to incorporate songs from across their career. Monkey was one of the night’s highlights with its rumbling drums, soaring guitars and dual vocal. They also played Pissing and Will The Night alongside stunning tracks from their latest album such as Spanish Translation and What Part of Me.

Steve Garrington moved between bass and keyboards without fuss and maintained an impassive expression throughout, but his playing was understated and exquisite throughout.

The songs were played with controlled restraint. The vocal trick they employ in a number of songs, whereby Parker sustains her note just a fraction longer than Sparhawk, was quite noticeable in the live setting, but it was very effective and added an extra layer of lament to some their songs.

At one stage Sparhawk broke a string during one of his occasional feedback frenzies and had to disappear backstage to get a replacement. He then proceeded to restring his guitar on stage while Parker and Garrington played Especially Me without his guitar accompaniment. Without necessarily knowing what is involved, it still surprised me that he didn’t have, a) a spare guitar, or b) a guitar tech or roadie to perform such menial tasks.  

Thankfully he was ready to go again in time for Lies, before they concluded with the bombastic Landslide, a song that would have been impossible without Sparhawk’s skuzzy and atmospheric guitar work. As the reverberations of that song died away, the band made their exit.

However, after such a transfixing show, we weren’t letting them go that easily. They returned for an encore and played a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, sung by Mimi Parker. This was one of those gigs where I’d just rather hear them play their own songs, but I suppose the artists must reserve the right to play whatever they feel like.

Sparhawk revealed that Parker had chastised him backstage for not talking enough to the audience, so he fumbled about for a few seconds before finally asking if there was anything we wanted to hear. I missed the first title that was yelled out, but after the briefest consultation, they rejected it anyway. I’d have yelled out for Into You had we been closer the front, but the popular vote seemed to be Sunflower.

They concluded the show with the gentle and sanguine When I Go Deaf from 2005’s The Great Destroyer.  Well it started out gentle and sanguine, but as befitting a song called When I Go Deaf, it erupted into a (controlled) cacophony. Had I gone deaf at that moment, I’d have at least gained some consolation from the fact that the last thing I’d heard was Low playing live.

They may be called Low, but I was on a high after the show, and I’d only had one beer. What a great band!

Setlist

No Comprende

The Innocents

Plastic Cup

On My Own

Holy Ghost

Monkey

Spanish Translation

Words

Pissing

What Part of Me

Will the Night

Murderer

Especially Me

Lies

Landslide

- - - - - -

Let’s Stay Together

Sunflower

When I Go Deaf

The Darling Downs – 2 April 2016

The Darling Downs

Luke Sinclair

Grandview Hotel, Fairfield

Saturday 2 April 2016

$14

“Number 56, You’re Chicken Parmigiana’s Ready!”

The Darling Downs is a stretch of rich pastoral and agricultural land in southern Queensland that forms part of Australia’s so called food bowl. It was perhaps appropriate therefore that Ron S Peno and Kim Salmon’s musical outfit of the same name should be playing in a bistro.

The bistro at the Grandview Hotel in Fairfield may seem an unlikely place to see a performance from the legendary lead singer of Died Pretty, together with the man generally acknowledged to have invented grunge with The Scientists, but not only did it make for a homely atmosphere, it was quite convenient to get to. As I walked in, probably 50 or so people, including families, couples and large groups of friends, were seated at tables tucking into their dinner and chatting convivially over a glass of wine. Seated at the end of one table chewing away were the stars of the night, Ron S Peno and Kim Salmon.

I couldn’t make it to Died Pretty’s recent shows in Melbourne, and nor am I able to attend Peno’s forthcoming show back at the Grandview with the Superstitions, so this rare live performance by The Darling Downs took on greater signifiance. Besides, I’d never previously seen them play.

The Darling Downs is Peno and Salmon’s acoustic folk and roots side project. They convene irregularly every few years or so for a show or an album – there’s been three albums in 10 years – so this was not be missed.

Luke Sinclair

Luke Sinclair from Raised By Eagles opened the night playing a solo set. I’m not familiar with his band’s material, but their most recent album, Diamonds in the Bloodstream, was well regarded and has won several awards in various alt-country categories.

He played Waiting For Ghosts from that album, but despite his reasonably full song introductions, I’m not sure if the other material he played was drawn from that band’s catalogue or his own secret stash. I was half listening to Luke and half checking progress footy scores between songs. One song, he said, was about his hometown of Beechworth, another had been commissioned by Darebin Council. I don’t know if it was about bin night or hard rubbish collections, but without knowing the origin of his band’s name, I was just relieved he wasn’t playing any songs by The Eagles.

His songs were well crafted, but they all seemed to be played at more or less the same tempo. This may have been because he was accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Perhaps realising this, he asked his wife, Tracy McNeil, to join him on vocals and add some colour to a few songs. In any case, most of the patrons were still finishing their meals so they didn’t want to be subjected to a sonic assault before dessert.

The Darling Downs

If Luke Sinclair’s gentle guitar backing lent all of his songs a similar pace and tone, then Kim Salmon dispelled that mood with the aggressive strumming he brought to the very first song of The Darling Downs’ set, In That Jar.

Peno further accentuated the change with his distinctive and expressive vocals that filled the room, and perhaps several adjoining rooms as well. I suspect even the people in the gaming room looked up from their machines for a second or two wondering what the interruption was.

Salmon and Peno are an interesting duo. With Peno’s diminutive stature and Salmon’s curly hair, they sort of look like a post-punk Simon and Garfunkle, although the front room at the Grandview is not exactly Central Park. Salmon grinned away at the audience under his mop of curly hair while he bashed out a tune from his acoustic guitar, while Peno looked at the ground, out the window, even internally, anywhere it seemed but at the audience, while his body twitched, jerked and jolted in involuntary spasms as he sang.

The first few songs were drawn from the first Darling Downs album, How Can I Forget This Heart of Mine, including Why Did She Leave, All Fall Down and Let it Breathe, a folky rootsy number that ended with an almighty yelp from Peno. They played a few songs from their second album, From One To Another, that Salmon spruiked, saying he had the last five known copies on vinyl available for sale at the merch desk. Circa ’65 from that album is a dark, brooding masterpiece that was the centrepoint of the first set. A couple of false starts to the gentle Every Time We Say Goodbye helped lighten the mood. They rounded out the first set with the beautiful and impassioned Loverslain.

During the interval I wandered over to pick up a copy of From One To Another. Kim Salmon told me that Ron doesn’t particularly like the album because he thinks it is a bit dark and too much in the minor key. I thought that was a bit odd – after all, it’s not like Died Pretty are the chirpiest band you’ll ever hear. Salmon added that perhaps it was just because he’d written more of the songs than Peno for that album. Peno revealed on stage that he didn’t own a copy and petitioned someone to buy it for him. I didn’t, instead I purchased Kim Salmon’s new album My Script and asked him to sign it for me. I was way too intimidated to ask Ron Peno to sign anything. He’d repaired to the bar for the interval, obviously leaving the grubby commercial side of the operation entirely to Salmon.

Kim Salmon picked up his banjo for the beginning of the second set, and they played There Were Tears, the first of a series of songs from their third album, In The Days When The World Was Wide.

In fact the second set consisted of the entire album with the addition of Somewhere There’s a Place Where I’ll Be Fine and a cover of E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) by Blue Oyster Cult – not a band you hear covered very often, well ever actually. Ron said he could sing Blue Oyster Cult all night, but they reverted to their own material, playing the beautiful, Your Face and Higher When They Fall.

The stage at the Grandview Hotel is in the corner and backs onto the intersection of Heidelberg Road and Station Street. If you walked in the corner entrance you’d find yourself on stage. One bare light shone on the stage, settling harshly on the top of Peno’s head. The lighting effects, however, were produced by the moving car beams and changing traffic lights reflected through the leadlight windows of the pub. It actually created quite a rich and varied light show.

The Darling Downs have an intriguing approach. Salmon’s forthright approach to playing mixed with Peno’s rich baritone and idiosynchratic stage presence made for a magnetic performance. Essentially it was just acoustic guitar and voice, and yet it seemd so much more than that.

Two full sets plus a support act made for a long night however, with the show not finishing until after midnight. That’s a long time for people to get comfy and drink in the music and whatever else they might wish to imbibe. This point was driven home by one patron whose quick movements managed to place a wine bucket under the chin of his heaving companion, just in time to catch her stream of her vomit.

Vomiting into a champagne bucket is an act rich in symbolism, a conjunction of the sort of high life and low life that Ron Peno and Kim Salmon might exploit in song. Which is all well and good, but you shouldn’t have to clean up symbolism.

Setlist

First set

In That Jar

Why Did She Leave

Still Falls The Rain

All Fall Down

Let It Breathe

Circa ’65

Every Time We Say Goodbye

Something Special

Waste My Time

Deep Deep Blue

Loverslain

Second set

There Were Tears

I Don’t Care

Like Desire

Somewhere There’s a Place Where I’ll Be Fine

Saved

Down To the River

Wish You Were Her

E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) – Blue Oyster Cult cover

Your Face

Higher When They Fall

Light of the World

Between the Forest and the Trees

Forever Night

Jason Isbell - 29 March 2016

Jason Isbell

Eilen Jewell

Melbourne Recital Centre - Tuesday 29 March 2016

Croxton Park Hotel - Friday 1 April 2016

$70, $80

Southern Rock Recital

In the narrative of a number of his songs, Jason Isbell often finds himself heading out on the open road in a battered old car or pick up truck. So far, so Springsteen you might think. And the two singers do share some similarities; their songs illustrate empathy for the blue collar working man and profess an understanding of, women, plus they both tend to speak out of the bottom corner of their mouths.

However, there are also some major points of departure. Where Springsteen is generally telling the tale of a young tearaway on an escapade with a young lady or a group of mates, Isbell more often than not is on the road alone, making good his escape from a tricky situation and reflecting on where he’d just gone wrong. Their respective song selves generally come to similar realizations about life and love, but Springsteen just seems to have more fun along the way. And usually gets the girl.

What’s in a Name?

The other thing I noticed while listening to Jason Isbell perform at the Melbourne Recital Centre this week is just how bad his characters are with names. The characters in his songs either forget the names of the people they’re with (24 Frames), forget their own name (Alabama Pines, Speed Trap Town), think it sounds funny when someone says ther name (Codeine) or don’t even get called by their own name (Children of Children). Either Isbell is having an identity crisis or an unusually high proportion of his characters suffer from early onset Alzheimers.

John and I might be suffering from something similar; for we had booked tickets for Jason Isbell’s show without realising we already had tickets to see The Decemberists on the same night. While this was unfortunate, there was never really any question about which show we’d attend, for Jason Isbell’s two most recent solo albums are among the best releases of the past few years. 

If singing about driving around in cars provides one point of comparison between him and Springsteen, then songwriting knowhow provides another. Isbell can convey a life story in a couplet and unpack all its feeling in his inflection. If Bruce Springsteen is The Boss, then Jason Isbell must be 2IC. So we also bought tickets for his club show at the Croxton Park for the following Friday night.

Eilen Jewell

Eilen Jewell was the support for both nights. I had heard one or two of her songs previously, and although they had more of a country tinge than I would usually tolerate, the songs were pretty good and she has a lovely languorous lilt to her voice.

She certainly attracted her own crowd because instead of the half empty audirorium that usually greets support acts, the place was packed right from the start. She also received more than a cursory polite greeting as she took the stage; so much so that she felt the need to point out that she wasn’t in fact Jason Isbell.

In performance Jewell’s abundant charm shone through with witty patter between songs and a winning personality. The musicians were uniformly excellent, including Jason Beek on drums, Shawn Supra on upright bass who looked like a young Athol Guy, and grizzled guitarist Jerry Miller, who was wearing a cowboy hat and looked like he’d stepped straight out of a Sam Shepherd play. He got the sort of introduction and cheer that suggested he is a big name in his own right, and he certainly had the appearance of someone who has travelled a few musical highways, to say nothing of his playing, which was effortlessly brilliant. A quick Google search later revealed him to be a guitar legend of long standing – founding member of Moby Grape, he knew Hendrix, played with The Doors and came in at no. 68 in Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

It is certainly speaks to my ignorance (or relative youth) that I didn’t know of him, but then, my musical education was largely gained in the Seaview Ballroom in the early 1980s. So unless he was once a member of The Fall, or had spikey jet-black hair, leather jeans and a heroin problem, I probably wasn’t paying much attention.

The only person I knew to wear a cowboy hat in that era was Tracy Pew of the Birthday Party. Unlike Pew, I suspect Jerry Miller’s cowboy hat was less an item of fetish wear, and more a signifier that he was an actual cowboy. In this instance such headwear indicated that we were in for a full-on honky-tonk, country and western ho-down. In fact it was only that the Recital Centre is a seated venue that we avoided an outbreak of boot-scooting during Jewell’s set.

So, not my thing really, and possibly I nodded off momentarily, but she seemed like a beautiful person and the audience responded very enthusiastically. So much so their applause kept jolting me awake.

Free from the stultifying confines of the concert hall, her set at the Croxton Park Hotel three nights later seemed more energetic and dynamic, benefiting perhaps from a high spirited audience that were standing rather than seated, and drinking it up in TGIF mode. Plus she’d done her homework on the local idiom and vowed that they were there to “Rock the Croc!”

Which they duly did. Her sets included Heartache Boulevard, Needle and Thread, High Shelf Booze and Rio Grande among others. On both nights quite a number of people responded to her entreaties to visit her at the merch desk during the interval where she would sign anything “within reason.” Her fanbase, if the queue at the Croxton was anything to go by, is 50+ year old balding, paunchy men.  Possibly not what she envisioned when she embarked on her career, but at least it’s a demographic that buys vinyl and cds rather than downloads it illegally.

The Jason Isbell tour t-shirts on sale at the merch desk bore designs that looked like whiskey or bourbon labels, which I thought odd for someone who is supposedly a recovering alcoholic. I’ve read that Ryan Adams was instrumental in helping stage an intervention to help Jason Isbell get sober, which made me wonder just how bad he must have been – having Ryan Adams sponsor your sobriety would be like having Rolf Harris act as a character witness.

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall

The Melbourne Recital Centre was purpose built for chamber music ensembles, but economic realities have meant that the group operating the venue have had to broaden their offering to include other types of music, including – God forbid – rock ‘n’ roll.

It was deisgned with acoustic fidelity and clarity as paramount, so the interior of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall boasts a polished and carved timber finish. It looks great, but more importantly, it sounds incredible. There are some acts it wouldn’t necessarily suit, such as Batpiss or Ouch My Face, but for any artist trading in finesse and subtlety it is probably the best venue in Melbourne.

The only problem with the design of the hall is that there aren’t enough toilet facilities. I can’t speak for the Ladies, but when you have the combination of rock bands and a full bar, you need to cater for more than five or six at a time in the men’s.

The other design flaw is that there is no centre aisle in the stalls. I assume this is to preserve the acoustic fidelity of the auditorium, but it means that there are 35 or so seats strung out across each row. If you’re in the centre, that’s an awful lot of “Excuse me’s” and “Sorry’s” you have to mutter as you edge across in front of people, nudging their knees and stepping on their toes while placing either your arse or your crotch in their face. Still it’s a small price to pay for a decent venue, and when you think about it, the situation offers its own possibilities for frisson.

Jason Isbell

Jason Isbell 'rocks the Croc'

All that aside, I was looking forward to hearing Jason Isbell’s beautifully crafted songs in a proper concert hall. I’ve seen him perform solo previously, as support to Ryan Adams some years back, but missed his 2014 shows that my band buddy John still raves about. Since then, he’s released Something More Than Free an album that, despite winning Grammys, is every bit as good as its predecessor, Southeastern and should sound amazing played live with a band.

Isbell and his band took the stage and played Stockholm and Palmetto Rose – two of his rockier numbers that tested out the hall’s acoustic limits.

The lineup consisted of Sadler Vaden on guitar (with a name like that, you simply have to become a lead guitarist in a rock band, or a porn star), Jimbo Hart on bass, Derry deBorja on keyboards and Chad Gamble on drums, as well as Isbell on electric and acoustic guitar. During musical interludes when not required at the microphone, Isbell strolled about the stage checking out what each musician was up to, somewhat in the manner of a school teacher supervising their class.

Reference to his former band, The Drive By Truckers, generated a series of whoops from the audience, particularly the guy sitting two rows behind me who gave an extra cheer when Isbell began Decoration Day.  There was no doubting this chap’s Isbell fan credentials when he gave an equally loud cheer for Alabama Pines – another song from Isbell’s pre Southeastern period.

Jason Isbell himself alternated between electric guitar and acoustic. It was during the quiter numbers that the power of his voice rang clear and he was able to extract the acoustic advantage the concert hall bestowed, in particular during Travelling Alone, The Life You Chose and Different Days. 

Never Gonna Change, another Drive By Truckers number, ventured into the realms of prog rock performance with Isbell and Sadler Vaden exchanging competitive guitar licks while facing each other. It wasn’t quite Bowie fellating Mick Ronson’s guitar, but it wasn’t too far removed.

The band left the stage as Isbell commenced playing Cover Me Up solo on his acoustic guitar. Vaden hid in the shadows and added slide guitar accompaniment. As the song continued to build in intensity, the band gradually returned one by one to help lift it to its showstopping crescendo. This was one of the highlights of the set, with Isbell’s impassioned voice filling the auditorium, and the band accentuating the singer’s ardour with a majestic and potent backing.

From here the band brought the show home with a succession of outstanding tracks, including the the gentle folk of Relatively Easy and the jaunty If It Takes a Lifetime, before concluding with the gutsier 24 Frames and the sublime Children of Children – probably the highlight of the album as well as this show. The woman behind me let out an audible sigh when he sang the line about the years he took from his mother’s life, “just by being born”. I had to dab a tear away myself. It’s a powerful song and this performance of it was fervent and intense.

As he put his guitar back on its stand and waved an arm in salutation, the standing ovation was unanimous and instant, mainly because it had been a remarkable show, but possibly because the seats had grown quite hard after more than an hour and while I can't speak for everyone else, I was taking any excuse to stand.

The emotions stirred up by Childlren of Children carried over into the first encore number when Isbell took the stage alone to play Elephant, a song about a friend dying from cancer. The mood lightened somewhat with the full band blasting out the Truckers song, Codeine. While Vaden and Isbell struck time honored guitar god poses, deBorja stepped out from behind his keyboard and joined in the rock ‘n’ roll revelry with a piano accordian. Despite Isbell helping him out with some stage byplay, deBorja proved that it is extremely difficult to look convincing while ‘rocking out’ with a piano accordian.

The show at the Croxton Park Hotel three nights later was a more boisterous and rollicking affair, befitting its less formal environs. The setlist was largely similar, although they sequenced the songs differently, opening with 24 Frames to get the crowd immediately involved and replacing Elephant and Relatively Easy with the punchier Flying Over Water and Hudson Commodore.

Both shows were excellent and it was worth seeing performances in two such distinct settings. I suspect Isbell and band felt more at home with the lively and animated crowd at the Croc, and perhaps it’s a sign of my dotage, but I really enjoyed the Recital Centre show where the acoustics were crystal clear and I could watch the band without having to strain to look around the heads of those in front of me.

It was certainly something more than free – about $80 each night in fact, even more when you factor in the cost of The Decemberists tickets we didn’t use – but it was also something more than enjoyable.

Setlist (Recital Centre)

Stockholm

Palmetto Rose

Something More Than Free

Decoration Day

Alabama Pines

Travelling Alone

The Life You Chose

Different Days

Never Gonna Change

Cover Me Up

Relatively Easy

If It Takes a Lifetime

Speed Trap Town

24 Frames

Children of Children

- - - - - - - - -

Elephant

Codeine

Setlist (Croxton Park Hotel)

24 Frames

Flying Over Water

Something More Than Free

Decoration Day

Different Days

Hudson Commodore

The Life You Chose

Travelling Alone

Alabama Pines

Codeine

Palmetto Rose

Never Gonna Change

Cover Me Up

If It Takes a Lifetime

Stockholm

- - - - - - - - -

Speed Trap Town

Children of Children