Harry Manx "Om Suite Ohm" (4*)

A glance at the titles in the discography will suggest a certain preoccupation that’s reflected in descriptions of Manx as a Mysticssippi blues man though it probably wouldn’t spring to mind as you run through the African groove that drives Further Shore (co-written with African inspired Byron Bay based colleague Yeshe) and started life as an instrumental before Manx came up with the words. Take a listen to the words, however, and you’re right in that philosophical mode though it takes a while for the Indian tonalities Clayton Doley’s Hammond B3 drives things along.

The enhanced instrumentation continues through Way Out Back’s dreamy didjeridoo-driven excursion through the ancient Australian landscape, with lyrics spoken by Gunjurra Waitairie as Manx’s ethereal slide evokes the vastness of the Nullarbor and that B3 fills in underneath.

His take on Coltrane’s A Love Supreme emphasises the jazzman’s connection to Indian music (the main theme to the piece is taken from a traditional South Indian folk tune, or dhun). While Manx doesn’t attempt the whole four-part suite, using the mantra in Acknowledgement as the basis for his exploration of the piece works well as a slide exercise that ties the blues tradition to classical Indian ragas.

That exploration that continues through The Blues Dharma and All Fall Down as Manx lets the Eastern influences gradually rise to predominance. The same atmosphere continues through Saya, the atmospheric The Moon Rose Up and Carry My Tears, written for a friend who had passed on, reprised from his  from  his 2011 Strictly Whatever collaboration with Kevin Breit.

Reuben's Train is another return to something from earlier in his career. It appeared on Manx’s debut album (Dog My Cat) while Stay Tuned winds things up in a suitably subtle, understated manner.

There'a nothing particularly new hereabouts, no revelations or jaw-dropping moments but a few tweaks and quiet additions to Manx's sonic palette (the use of violins and other members of the string family is a first) add subtle light and shade to Manx's quiet virtuosity. While it won't jump out of the speakers and demand attention there's plenty on offer for the discerning listener, and repeated listens will deliver rewards.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Zepp Namba, Osaka 15 December 2013 Spinning Songbook Show

The ancient Romans searched through the entrails of sacrificed animals looking for omens, and as we sat waiting for last night's show, I found myself pondering the significance, if any, of two items that were probably of no significance at all, but when you've got half an hour's wait, that's the sort of thing you do after you've had a photo taken with the Wheel in the background.

Actually, we were lucky to be there at all.

If The Supervisor hadn't asked what time the show started we might have rocked up at least half an hour after the actual commencement. We'd had lunch with The Sister and The Rowdy Niece, and I'd answered a question about starting time with a seven-thirty, omitting an I think and failing to note the expression of surprise from someone who's rather more au fait with the way things run over here than her sister, who has spent the last twenty-odd years in Australia.

Most of the conversation was, predictably, in Japanese, so I didn't pick up the that's early for a Sunday (or words to that effect).

We also learned that the ¥500 drink charge we'd complained about earlier is, in effect, standard operating practice in these parts.

In any case, Madam checked at around four-thirty, we were out the door shortly thereafter and around an hour later we were seated in row G, enjoying the different ambience at a different venue.

The ¥500 drink fee hadn't caused quite the same resentment now that we were aware it was par for the course, and once we were inside it was obvious that Zepp Namba is a far more relaxed environment than the Ex in  Roppongi. The entrance was entirely devoid of people yelling instructions through bullhorns, and there were no PA announcements reminding us that photographs were forbidden.

I joined a stream of punters getting photos taken in front of the iconic item and was on my way back to the seats when I noted a familiar-looking bearded gentleman thanking someone who'd taken a happy snap. "Strange," I thought. "Looks like Steve. must be his brother."

As the figure headed off I remarked on the remarkable resemblance, and Madam pointed out that he'd been stopped by a couple of Japanese girls and was signing autographs.

Obviously, Steve...

I wasn't sure why someone who'd done dozens of these shows would want a photographic record of his presence there, which raises all sorts of avenues for speculation, and it was around that point I noticed there'd been some changes on the Wheel.

For a start, all the album bonuses, the King's Ransom and Imperial Chocolate and their ilk were gone, replaced by individual songs (In Another Room, River in Reverse, Big Tears, Human Hands), and what seemed to be a new Ghost Jackpot.

So maybe that was it. Alternatively, if the titles up there are the result of some sort of EC-Steve-Whoever collaboration you might want a record.

Or it might just be a part of the pre-concert ritual.

But what was obvious from the time the ensemble hit the stage was an obvious degree of relaxation, which might be down to the fact that the TV appearance was behind them, but quite possibly related to the change of venue.

As noted, Zepp Namba had a much more relaxed vibe in front of stage, and the same thing quite possibly applies to those areas we don't get to see. In any case, Elvis expressed a liking for the place.

It was obvious, once the Wheel segments started, that there'd been a change in the selection policy. Elvis' first foray into the crowd produced a pair of sisters, one sporting an Elvis t-shirt and the other a Liverpool FC shirt and supporter's scarf. Obvious fans, who obviously knew how to attract the man's attention.

Subsequent spinners included a couple who had She as their wedding song. That was their request, and a bit of manipulation on Elvis' part delivered the Joanna Jackpot, which, predictably, concluded with their request.

The Hammer of Song segment produced a woman in a kimono who rang the bell once the right hammer had been produced and requested 45, rather than one of the obvious suspects.

She sat in the Celebrity lounge, obviously having a good time and happily singing along to Radio Radio.

A final crowd excursion in the Help Me extension of Watching the Detectives produced a Belgian gent in a hammer and sickle t-shirt and an attractive Japanese lass who either arrived together or were very rapidly becoming quite good friends.

And, with the more interesting selection of spinners came an increased use of the go-go cage, though no one matched the terpsichorean tantalization of the lovely Dixie de la Fontaine.

And from Row G it was interesting to watch (out of the corner of the eye, of course) what happened as The Mysterious Josephine went out into the audience. One gathers that part of her brief, in the Stage Left aisle, involves encouraging the crowd reaction. You also get the distinct impression that she has someone selected just in case. A Japanese couple spent a long time cued to go on, passed over (quite literally) in Help Me, and ended up missing their shot at the stars when the show came to a relatively premature end.

Actually, it wasn't that premature, and one suspects Elvis was starting to have some vocal issues. The volume definitely seemed to have been cranked up through the latter portions of the encore in a way it hadn't been in Tokyo. He definitely seemed to be straining in Strict Time.

In any case, after the lengthy second set, the crowd persisted with calls for an encore, right up to the point where the stage crew started removing items from the Wheel.

Highlights?

Elvis expressing his inner Jerry Lee Lewis when there were apparent guitar issues during Mystery Dance.

My All Time Doll and Femme Fatale.

New Amsterdam > You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.

And, with that, it's off to Kyoto for a couple of days off bare trees in temple courtyards before we make our way back to the wilds of Northern Australia and an appointment with the same outfit in Sydney in April.

I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart of the City
Uncomplicated
Mystery Dance (Elvis took a chorus on the grand piano, guitar issues?)
Spin 1: My All Time Doll
Spin 2: I Can Sing A Rainbow jackpot
Green Shirt
Red Shoes
Almost Blue
My All Time Doll
Spin 3: So Like Candy
Come the Meantimes
New Amsterdam > You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Femme Fatale
Spin 4: Happy Jackpot
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Possession
Spin 5: Joanna Jackpot
Talking in the Dark
Shot With His Own Gun
She

Spin 6: I Want You
Walk Us Uptown

Encore:
Hammer of Song: 45
Radio Radio
Cinco Minutos Con Vos
Watching the Detectives > Help Me
Spin 7: Time Jackpot
Spin 8: Ghost Jackpot
Sugar Won't Work
Beyond Belief
Out of Time
Strict Time
I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea
Peace Love & Understanding

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Ex Theatre, Roppongi, Tokyo 13 December 2013 Spinning Songbook Show

A glance down the set list from the third show in the Tokyo run has to suggest one of three things. Or two, with a proviso for a third. Perhaps we'll get a little additional light cast on these things at the fourth show, when the venue changes to Osaka's Zepp Namba.

It's hard, having seen all three shows, to avoid the conclusion that the Spinning Songbook concept hasn't played out as well as it was supposed to in these parts. With no Wheel action between the end of the first set and the Hammer of Song segment that opened the second encore, that's a fairly obvious conclusion.

Last night, on the other hand, was going out live to air on Japanese Pay TV, so it's just possible the decision was made to keep the rest of the show within what you might call normal parameters rather than bring in the risk factors that come into play where the Wheel and the selection of audience members to spin it are concerned. Don't want to upstage the star of the show, do we?

There was a degree of what might have been with the couple Josephine hauled up on stage for the Hammer of Song. Where just about everybody else, either singly or jointly, had been female, here we had a bloke who looked like a character. Pork pie hat, white coat, Spinning Songbook T-shirt, girlfriend sporting the same shirt. You'd look at him and label him obvious fan with possible oddball tendencies.

After the jokey preliminaries with the girlfriend and the fake hammer, the guy gets the real one, hits the bell and, given his choice from the Wheel, selects the Joker, which equates to a choice of any song on the Wheel.

Which, of course, he’d already qualified for through the Hammer.

The selection turned out to be Every Day I Write the Book, and through the track the two off them end in the Go-Go Cage, encouraged into Philly Soul/Motown moves by Josephine and Dixie de La Fontaine.

Then they spend the rest of the set with visible applause and reaction from Fan boy, in a fairly stark contrast to just about everyone else who had been hauled up on stage over the three days.

Actually, all the Hammer of Song people have had a bit of character about them.

Unlike the previous two nights, we actually ended up with four segments: the main Spinning Songbook set following the full five song Overture, where the highlight was an impromptu God Give Me Strength called from the middle of the audience (Mr Nieve. God Give Me Strength if you please). It wasn't much visually if you were up in the balcony, but the vocal was belted out with appropriate intensity, and the whole thing must have looked fantastic on television. But even in the balcony, you still wanted to be there as the heart and soul got poured into the performance.

Almost as good was an impassioned I Want You, delivered as the result of the final spin.

Chelsea, Walk Us Uptown and Pump It Up rounded the set off, and it's starting to look like Elvis has found another default show closer.

Otherwise he'd have saved PiU for the end of the third encore wouldn't he?

Or maybe not. The idea may have been to get the punters, who tended (as previously noted) to be rather reserved in the yelling and foot stomping departments, delivering an appropriate response in the Encore Stakes.

While I'd reckoned on what followed as the First Encore, the Costello site divides the Elvis and Steve mini-set off as an Interlude, with the full band selection from Accidents to My New Haunt as the Encore. Same horse, different jockey. What was interesting, in this regard, was the absence of the semi-acoustic bracket with Slow Drag for Josephine and Jimmie Standing In the Rain, which in turn raises the question of the TV broadcast, and what it was supposed to achieve.

It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall when these matters were being sorted.

In any case, regardless of whether the Wheel did what it was supposed to, and the policies involved with selecting the spinners, it was obvious from the start that the band was on last night. There was just that little bit of extra oomph, the sort of thing you expect when there's an occasion that needs to be risen to.

As far as the set list was concerned you'd have to reckon it had been deliberately shaped to present most of the facets of the Elvis back catalogue, though the Americana element was conspicuous by its absence, and the current album got a substantial work over though, of course, it's not an Imposters project.

What will be most interesting is the question of whether the show ends up appearing in DVD or some other form. There's a Spinning Songbook package out in the market, there's no certainty the market can handle two of 'em, but one thing's certain.

If and when it does appear, I'll be in for a copy.

The show rocked mightily when it needed to rock, rolled through a fair selection of the Costello style palette and underlined the notion that the Wise Up Ghost material isn't as far removed from the rest of the man's catalogue as some might think.

So, with a show to go, we'll see what happens in Osaka, where we'll be away from the need to sort things out for theTV special.

I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart of the City
Uncomplicated
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
Spin 1: So Like Candy
Come the Meantimes
Double Spin
Spin 2: Tokyo Storm Warning (played after Girl jackpot)
Spin 3: Girl jackpot
This Year's Girl
Party Girl
Girls Talk
Tokyo Storm Warning
Spin 4: She (ended in the crowd)
God Give Me Strength (sung entirely off stage)
Spin 5: I Want You
Chelsea
Walk us UpTown
Pump it Up

Encore 1:
I Still Have That Other Girl
Smile
Shot With his Own Gun
Accidents Will Happen
Less Than Zero
Cinco Minutos Con Vos
Shipbuilding
Bedlam
Tripwire > Peace Love & Understanding (Slow)
My New Haunt

Encore 2:
Hammer of Song: Every Day I Write The Book
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Watching the Detectives
Sugar Won't Work
Peace Love & Understanding (fast)

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Ex Theatre, Roppongi, Tokyo 12 December 2013 Spinning Songbook Show

It mightn't quite be living the dream, but I was sitting in the restaurant at a Tokyo hotel around six-thirty last night thinking life doesn't get much better than this. I was wrapping up a plate of pasta alla vongole bianco, with accompanying glass of prosecco, having wandered back from Tokyo's best oyster bar, and a glass of Yebisu that washed down four prime examples of Japan's best oysters.

And it was time to head out the door for the second of three Elvis Costello Spinning Songbook shows at a theatre a matter of a couple of hundred metres down Roppongi Street.

No, it doesn't get much better than this, but, occasionally it does. Not much better, and again, the unexpected lift came in the encores where last night's performance produced a Hammer of Song request for Church Underground, a response that this band doesn't know that song and a decision to do it solo.

This time around, an excursion into the crowd during the Help Me segue out of Watching the Detectives produced what looked like an awestruck high school girl who needed assistance from The Mysterious Josephine to ring the bell.

I might be wrong about the high school girl, and awestruck might be wide of the mark as well, but the key point here is that she didn't look like someone who'd be conversant with the depths of Mr Costello's extensive back catalogue.

The request? Having managed, with assistance, to ring the bell, she asked for The Imposter, and followed it with the news that the request was for my lover because it's his favourite song.

Cue stunned looks all round from an outfit that takes its name from the song. An on-line query when I made it back to the hotel room reveals the song was last played in May 2008. So, five and a half years is plenty of time to forget how it goes.

But it did appear.

One suspects there's an autocue in operation, and they needed a window to enter the data. A final spin of the wheel produced an Imperial Chocolate bonus (Poor Napoleon, Shabby Doll). With The Imposter and Sugar Won't Work to follow it was a great way to wind up what had been another excellent show.

Significantly, Elvis left the stage with a remark along the lines of See you tomorrow night. It'll be on television. We'll all be famous.

On that basis,  you'd have to see these two shows as trial runs for a concert that's going to go live to air from seven-thirty this evening, so one's inclined to filter the last two nights through that perspective and make a few predictions.

There's no doubt about the opening Overture, the four or five song blast that had Uncomplicated slotted in the middle of I Hope You're Happy Now, Heart of the City, Mystery Dance and Radio Radio.

It's also fairly obvious he's working towards a particular demographic when it comes to the wheel spinners. They tend to be young, female and almost invariably overwhelmed by the fact that they're up there on stage in front of all those people.

I was hoping that he'd grab one of the geekier types I spotted in the foyer, which might have produced some interesting results, but in this setting the star of the show probably doesn't want to be upstaged.

The first spin produced the Girl bonus (This Year's Girl, Party Girl, Girls Talk, and the Lennon-Macartney Girl), and the next two delivered She, with comments about the original French lyric by Charles Aznavour, and Monkey to Man, followed by an impromptu Tokyo Storm Warning and Alison > The Wind Cries Mary > Somewhere Over the Rainbow > There's A Place For Us. We know they're impromptu because that's how they're tagged in the official set list.

For me, things really took off with the next spin, God Give Me Strength, complete with masterful piano from Mr Nieve and a venture out into the audience for the final verse or two. One of my favourite Elvis songs, delivered with total passion.

That was the first of a double spin, with the second selection, Accidents Will Happen deferred until after Spin 6, which threw up Tokyo Storm Warning. The respin added New Lace Sleeves to the set list.

I thought we were in for the first encore break after Accidents, but Wise Up Ghost and I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea rounded things off nicely, and the crowd reaction, while not as restrained as the previous night, made me suspect we were in for what amounted to a second set rather than a string of encores, particularly when the next cluster of songs concluded with Peace Love & Understanding.

In between the guitar action centred around the acoustic with Ascension Day followed by Good Year For the Roses, Suit of Lights, Slow Drag for Josephine, Jimmie Standing In The Rain and a quite magnificent Shipbuilding. The young gentleman who'd been hauled up on stage for the double spin had named it as his request, missed getting it by a whisker (Accidents lobbed instead) but ended up having the wish fulfilled.

This acoustic based set based around Josephine and Jimmie seems to be standard operating practice, so you can probably pencil it in for tonight's show as well.

Viceroys Row and Oliver's Army preceded PLU, and raised the suspicion that we weren't going any further. Elvis looked at his watch towards the end of the latter, obviously checking how long they had before the curfew or scheduled end of show.

And based on the degree of audience response you mightn't have been surprised to see the house lights come on at that stage. I was mildly surprised to note two gentlemen in front of me who had been applauding enthusiastically throughout sitting back and conversing as if the next bracket of songs was a foregone conclusion.

Well, it probably was, but I thought that part of the game was to act as if the second, third, fourth and fifth encores are the result of crowd appreciation. The appearance of someone coming up to replace Elvis' drink container as soon as the band departs the stage is, of course, a dead set give away.

Maybe he needs to wait until Elvis and company return. Surely he can skirt around Davey on his way to the little riser that holds Mr Costello's vocal lubrication.

But that's a minor gripe. The return that was always on once you saw the refill started with Watching the Detectives, which morphed into Help Me with another foray into the crowd that brought the young lady up on stage for the Hammer of Song and the request for The Imposter.

The convenient fiction of needing time to remember how it goes produced a final spin, and an Imperial Chocolate bonus, which turned out very tasty indeed. Poor Napoleon, Shabby Doll and The Imposter, followed by Sugar Won't Work brought things to a close in a show that, for once, didn't end with Pump It Up.

I can't say I was disappointed by the omission.

Viewed as a whole, a step up from Wednesday night, with the promise of something extra special with the live to air TV tonight. It says something about Costello's ambition to take a fly by the seat of the pants thing like a Spinning Songbook show and go live to air on a major pay TV network.

With two practice runs under the belt, tonight's show threatens to pull out all the plugs if he can wangle the right participants for the Wheel segments.

I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart of the City
Uncomplicated
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
Spin 1: Girl Bonus
This Year's Girl
Party Girl
Girl Talk
Girl
Come the Meantimes
Spin 2: She
Spin 3: Monkey To Man
Tokyo Storm Warning 
Alison > The Wind Cries Mary > Somewhere Over the Rainbow > There's A Place For Us
Double Spin
Spin 4: God Give Me Strength
Spin 5: Accidents Will Happen (deferred)
Spin 6: Tokyo Storm Warning. Respin: New Lace Sleeves
Accidents Will Happen
Walk Us Uptown 
I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea

Encore 1:
Ascension Day
Good Year For the Roses
Suit of Lights
Slow Drag for Josephine
Jimmie Standing In The Rain
Shipbuilding
Viceroys Row
Oliver's Army
Peace Love & Understanding

Encore 2:
Watching the Detectives > Help Me
Hammer of Song request for The Imposter resulted in baffled looks all around and another spin while Elvis "tried to remember how it went."
Spin 7: Imperial Chocolate bonus
Poor Napoleon
Shabby Doll
The Imposter
Sugar Won't Work

Parting remark along the lines of See you tomorrow night. It'll be on television. we'll all be famous.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Ex Theatre, Roppongi, Tokyo 11 December 2013 (Spinning Songbook Show)

 You can take the primary school teacher out of the classroom (and it has been just over eight years), but you can never get away from your past. Lying in bed waiting to drift off after a great show in a venue with some major irritants I was reminded of one of the old top-level organisers that ran under the moniker of PMI.

That’s Plus, Minus, Interesting, which has, in this case been transformed, through The Good, The Bad and The Ugly  into The Great, The Could Have Been Better and The Downright Ugly.
Starting with the latter:

The Downright Ugly:
Which has nothing to do with Elvis, but everything to do with the venue's approach to the punters. Now, some of this seems to be standard operating practice when it comes to concerts in Japan, but three major gripes:
Getting into the venue: where every other venue I've been to had a ground floor point of entry. Here, rather than walking in through the door that opens off the vestibule at the front of the building, we were directed up a flight of steps, across the top of the building and back down a flight of steps into a marshalling area that is on the other side of the door that was the logical point of entry and was, it seemed, for the well connected. The average punter, who paid for his or her ticket had to go via the Cape.
Crowd control: Once in, the punters are herded by marshals with bullhorns operating at maximum volume to a point where you are up for:
The extra slug. A compulsory ¥500 slug for a drink, which might be standard operating practice in Japan, but had my Japanese partner complaining bitterly. Along with the bullhorn marshalling, all this meant that when retook our seats we were somewhat less than gruntled.

Could Have Been Better:
The punters brought up to spin the wheel didn't hit any sparks to set things off on a tangent, apart from the Hammer of Song in the encore, who delivered a request for Church Underground and got it, despite Elvis' this band doesn't know that song.

Overall, the people up there for the spin seemed overawed, and the language factor probably didn't help. But the odd eccentric would have added to the fun.

Applause at the end of the main set was enthusiastic but subdued. I suspect Elvis thought cranking things up to the point where he could justify a third encore would be difficult. You wouldn't expect a polite crowd used to showing courtesy and respect in public to go hooting and hollering, stamping the feet and yelling for More. I was tempted, myself, but I thought it would be impolite to those around me.

This, after all, is a country where, over the space of around six weeks stretching over three visits I have NEVER heard someone talking loudly over a mobile phone in public, let alone delivering a frank, obscenity laden recount of last night's contretemps with the now ex-boyfriend or girlfriend.

The first encore was, as a result, more like a second set that combined what would have gone into two encores in other cases. In any case, he managed to work things to the point where they could go off and come back for the regulation thunderous finish.

The Excellent:
Once inside the venue it was obvious there wasn't a bad seat, at least as far as the balcony was concerned. Sound was good, clear, loud but not overwhelming. From the balcony,  you got a chance to see things you would miss otherwise (e.g. Steve's keyboard work).
Elvis was obviously thinking on his feet (see above) and seemed determined to deliver. Which he did in spades.
Talking in the Dark.
The Wise Up Ghost material in a band setting.
Encore 1, from Church Underground onwards. Thanks, Ayako!!

Setlist:
I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart of the City
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
Spin 1: Town Crier
Spin 2: Beyond Belief > You Belong To Me
Spin 3: Town Crier (respin) > Joanna Jackpot:
I Still Have That Other Girl
Talking In The Dark
She
Spin 4: Happy bonus:
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Double spin
Spin 5: I Can Sing A Rainbow Jackpot:
Green Shirt
Red Shoes
Blue Chair
Spin 6: Monkey to Man
Country Darkness
"You wanna hear a new song?" My New Haunt
Tripwire > Peace Love & Understanding (slow)

Encore 1:
Every Day I Write the Book
Hammer of Songs: Church Underground
Veronica
Slow Drag with Josephine
My All Time Doll
Jimmie Standing In The Rain

Encore 2:
I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea
Sugar Won't Work
I Want You
Pump It Up
Peace Love & Understanding (Fast)

Leonard Cohen Townsville Entertainment Centre Thursday, 28 November 2013

Leonard Cohen received a hearty roar of appreciation very early on the three hour proceedings when he announced tonight we're going to give it our very best shot (or words to that effect).

I suspect provincial audiences are inclined to suspect a name performer might be tempted to phone it in when playing a relative small and relatively isolated venue.

Interestingly, I seem to recall that best shot remark from the show we saw in Brisbane just over three years ago.

The setlist wasn't all that different either. A couple of songs from the new album, some notable exclusions from the extensive back catalogue, but most of the classics were there, delivered in almost exactly the same sequence as a couple of shows I looked at on this setlist site ).He didn't do Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye or The Gypsy Wife, but he does from time to time.

Knowing I'd be tapping this out the following morning, I'd done that little bit of pre-concert research. Trying to keep notes in the darkness of a concert venue can be a pain, so I thought I'd do a bit of forensic work on the most recent shows I could find.

The result was a list of thirty-three tracks in what looked to be about the regular sequence, and the only two that failed to make the cut last night were the aforementioned Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye and The Gypsy Wife.

But Cohen shows are like that. You pays your money, and you gets an immaculately rehearsed three hours with plenty of instrumental solo work from the members of a handpicked ensemble assembled around one of contemporary music's most esteemed wordsmiths. You might question one of, but leaving it out would drop other favourites like Messrs Costello, Newman, Thompson and Zevon a little too far back in the pecking order.

Regardless of how thoroughly you've rehearsed, there's always the possibility of a wild card, and it came in the form of a possibly indigenous female interjector. Leonard was doing his eighties basic synthesizer shtick on Tower of Song, and making wry remarks that fitted immaculately alongside the line about having no choice and being born with the gift of a golden voice when the interjections came.

The keyboard doodling and noodling continued, but Leonard was late back into the next verse. He seemed to be giggling.

It didn't, however, seem to throw the Webb sisters, who were on stage in the trimmed down Tower of Song ensemble straight after the resumption. They were magnificent throughout, and shone on If It Be Your Will. In combination with the wonderful Sharon Robinson, who had her own showcase on Alexandra Leaving they provided ethereal harmonies that provide a striking counterpoint to Cohen’s battered baritone.

On their own they mightn’t necessarily melt a heart of granite, but they’d go mighty close.

But the vocal trio is only one part of a lineup that’s as impressive in their own way as their boss, who displays his respect for the virtuosos gathered around him throughout proceedings.

Bassist (electric and upright) Roscoe Beck’s association with Cohen goes back to 1979, and you’d have to think he had a fair bit to do with assembling the rest of the band. According to Cohen’s official website he filled that role back in 1988, so you’d guess he’d have been called to do the same when financial double-dealing forced Leonard back onto the road.

Keyboard ace Neil Larsen arrives with an extensive list of session credits, including George Harrison, Rickie Lee Jones, the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Cliff and Richard and Linda Thompson (big tick in that department) and string and horn arrangements for, among others, Gregg Allman and B.B. King.

Cohen introduced him as Professor, and guitarist Mitch Watkins has spent some time teaching at the University of Texas at Austin, but like Roscoe Beck his association with Leonard runs back to 1979. In between he spent a lot of time working with Lyle Lovett as well as Jerry Jeff Walker, Joe Ely and Jennifer Warnes.

Watkins chipped in with some ringing Wes Montgomery styled guitar licks and Larsen got plenty of opportunities to work out on the Hammond B3 and other keys.

But the real stars on the instrumental front were Javier Mas, whose flamenco and gypsy-infused contributions on bandurria, laúd, archilaúd, and, occasionally acoustic guitar were once again stunning, and Moldovan violinist Alexandru Bublitchi, who regularly went close to stealing the show from the man who, last time I saw the ensemble, regularly threatened to steal the show from the front man.

All in all, a show that was at least as good as Brisbane three years ago, and possibly better. Leonard seemed relaxed. Our seats were much better (which, in terms of performance isn’t that important, but definitely enhances the enjoyment).

The only negative factor, in there was one, came in the absence of Dino Soldo, the keyboard, saxophone and assorted woodwind player who added tones of light and shade last time. Of course, if he had been there we wouldn’t have had the violinist, would we?

But when you’re looking for an assessment, it’s best to turn to some of my fellow attendees, two of whom find Hughesy’s predilection for multiple Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello concerts inexplicable. Both of them reported they’d have been happy to front up again the following night if that had been possible.

Me? Given the fact that you’d almost certainly get the same set, I don’t think so.

But if he’s back, by which time he’ll probably be into his eighties, I’m going again. After all, it might be the last time.

Set 1:
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
Who By Fire
Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
The Gypsy Wife
The Darkness
Amen
Come Healing
Lover, Lover, Lover
Anthem

Set 2:
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Chelsea Hotel #2
Waiting For The Miracle
Anyhow
The Partisan
In My Secret Life
Alexandra Leaving
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep
Hallelujah
Take This Waltz

First Encore:
So Long Marianne
Going Home
First We Take Manhattan

Second Encore:
Famous Blue Raincoat
If It Be Your Will
Closing Time

Third Encore:
I Tried To Leave You
I've Got A Little Secret
Save The Last Dance For Me

Band
Leonard Cohen - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Keyboards
Roscoe Beck - Acoustic and Electric Bass
Mitch Watkins - Guitar
Neil Larsen - Keyboards, Hammond B3
Javier Mas - Bandurria, Laud, Archilaud, Guitar
Alexandru Bublitchi - Violin
Rafael Bernardo Gayol - Drums
Sharon Robinson - Vocals
Hattie Webb - Vocals, Harp
Charley Webb - Vocals, Guitar

Trombone Shorty "Say That to Say This" (3.5*)

Well, here we are on the point of parting company with Troy Andrews, at least as far as automatic buy this status is concerned. The third outing under the Trombone Shorty imprint is impressive in spots, lacklustre in others. We twigged a fair while back that there’s a conscious pursuit of mainstream success operating hereabouts, and, increasingly, there’s content that doesn’t fit comfortably into what I’m interested in listening to.
The loping groove that kicks off the title track is just fine. Keep rolling those out, Shorty, and Hughesy will be buying. Say That to Say This offers just under three minutes of blaring brass over a pile driving riff. Tasty. You and I (Outta This Place) has some of those elements lurking under the contemporary R&B vocals that persist through Get the Picture. The problem is that it’s starting to sound a little too much like R&B by numbers with the horns relegated to the background.
Vieux Carre, two minutes forty-five of jazzy Caribbean instrumental groove sets things back to where I’d like ‘em, and the cover of The Meters’ Be My Lady has the original New Orleans fonk masters appearing on record for the first time since 1978. So you can see where he’s coming from, you’ve got a fair idea where he’s headed, but some of us have reservations about the route.
That’s particularly the case with Long Weekend, written by album co-producer Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson. Pleasant enough in its own way, but largely generic and essentially lightweight. Fire and Brimstone has a little more bite to it, a streetwise celebration of survival, with the trombone hauled out for the instrumental break.
Following that, the instrumental Sunrise, while again pleasant enough, is a tad too laid back for its own good. It’s back to R&B by numbers for Dream On, which has no chance of advancing too far in the play count stakes, though the instrumental break’s tasty enough. I’m just not so keen on what you have to navigate to get there.
Far better is Shortyville, just under four and a half minutes of grooving instrumental that could have been a little more energetic but lopes along quite tastily with the brass motifs to the fore. Nola Luck winds things up with a vocal that’s of a piece with its counterparts throughout the set.
As a mix of grooving instrumentals and relatively insipid pop-R&B with close to generic lyrics Say That to Say This switches the four way blend of jazz, funk, rock and hip hop that characterised Backatown and For True for an increasingly R&B-oriented product, which is fine if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Unfortunately, the vocal content here doesn’t float mine. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Tin Men "Avocado Woo Woo" (4*)

The publicity material describes the Tin Men as America's premier sousaphone, washboard and guitar trio, which you might think is stretching things a tad given the possibility that there aren’t too many trios featuring that particular configuration.

I’m looking more towards the Tin Men as an example of the need to work a variety of gigs to keep the wolf from the door, with Alex McMurray having another source of p(l)aying gigs where he doesn’t have to work the spotlight on his own.

Here he’s got a counterfoil in the form of Washboard Chaz, who has his own set of alternative revenue sources. The Palmetto Bug Stompers work their way through traditional New Orleans Jazz,  Washboard Rodeo blend New Orleans and Western swing influences and the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio probably deliver just what the moniker suggests.

Third Tin Man Matt Perrine has the handy ability to contribute some stringed bass, but when you’re rated a virtuoso sousaphone player by Downbeat, co-founder of the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, one of the city's premier brass bands, the recipient of Offbeat magazine's award for best tuba player for 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 you might be tempted to stick to your stronger suit.

Perrine also picked up credits as musical director and arranger for the musical Nine Lives, composed by Colman deKay and former Cowboy Mouth guitarist, Paul Sanchez, a post-Katrina postcard from New Orleans with the score performed by an all star cast including Irma Thomas, Harry Shearer, Michelle Shocked, Alex McMurray and Allen Toussaint. He’s also, predictably, turned up on Treme, and keeps the wolf from the door by playing gigs with, among others, the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, Paul Sanchez and the Rolling Road Show and Jon Cleary's philthy phew.

On that basis you can expect to see the name popping up in these parts fairly regularly from here on.

There’s a fair percentage of original McMurray material in the Tin Men repertoire, and you’d expect various numbers that appear in other settings would make their way into the trio’s live set, but there’s a bit of cover material in evidence on Avocado Woo Woo, including an intriguing take on Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours, and Chuck Berry’s Maybellene.

Having heard McMurray in other settings a burst of gospel to kick things off mightn’t be quite what you’re expecting, but Jesus Always Gets His Man is a serve of street gospel that charges along without taking any prisoners and doesn’t seem to have any tongues in cheek. That’s seemingly at odds with the sentiments expressed in the slinky Swerve, a co-write with Washboard Chaz that’s typically McMurray.

Perrine overdubs some trombone over the regular instrumentation on Turn My Lights Back On, delivering a dash of Dixieland to the mix. There’s no real indication who Tano-San is, but he seems like a cool dude on What Tano-San Say, three minutes of raffish je ne sais quoi, and the title track may or may not be paying tribute to a snacky delicacy. McMurray’s I Got A Guy seems to announce a connection to figures in the local underworld who can get things done for you (and if he can’t, he’s got a guy who can).  

Why Don't You Haul Off And Love Me? is about what you think it’s about, but dates back to 1949 when earlier versions of the track features at the top of the Country and Race Records (precursor to Rhythm & Blues) charts. The Mississippi Sheiks operated around the time of the Great Depression and provide the source for Lonely One In This Town.

There’s a touch of Hugh Masakela (think Grazing in the Grass) about Perrine’s Living And Loving On The West Bank  that segues nicely into Maybelline.

Things are back in Mississippi Sheiks territory for I've Got Blood In My Eyes For You  and New Orleans producer and engineer Keith Keller gets the writing credit for Lies, a prime slice of power pop that contrasts nicely with what preceded it, while The Valparaiso Men's Chorus Boy's Auxiliary roar along on the chorus of McMurray’s If You Can't Make It Here.

All in all, having caught most of McMurray’s back catalogue (apart from the earlier Tim Men releases (Super Great Music For Modern Lovers and Freaks For Industry haven’t made their way into iTunes hereabouts, and I’m *that close* to ordering hard copies) there isn’t a great deal that’s new here, but the guy’s a class act, Washboard Chaz makes an interesting counterfoil, and I’m increasingly supportive of the notion that you don’t need an actual bass player if you’ve got a sousaphone handy.

Of course, it also helps if you’ve got Matt Perrine to play the thing.

Good time jug band influenced music with wit, charm and washboard. What’s not to like about that?

Aaron Neville "My True Story" (4.5*)

After close to thirty years (since I first heard Orchid in the Storm and his work with the Neville Brothers) I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion we’re not going to get a classic Aaron Neville album, at least not one that matches a unique voice to the stellar collection of material that would set it off just right.

That’s not to suggest there haven’t been great performances along the way, and if you were to grab any of Aaron’s recorded output (it’s a fairly extensive discography, as detailed here) you’ll almost certainly find something that sits comfortably on the continuum between sublime and outstanding. The problem is you won’t find an album where the contents (the whole contents, that is) sit there consistently.

It might be out there, of course, but if it is I haven’t found or recognized it.

And, in the meantime, My True Story will do until the real thing comes along.

Part of the problem is a tendency for whoever sits in the producer’s chair to select a range of material that shows off that voice in a variety of settings. That's fine if it works, but these things don't always work quite as well as you might hope. Don Was and Keith Richards deftly avoid that problem here by restricting the range to doo wop, which as it turns out, was Neville’s first love. Glance at the track listing and you’ll recognize a couple you mightn’t associate with the style, but there’s no question about the nature of the treatment Money Honey, Be My Baby and Work with Me Annie receive here.

The contents rock along gently with the vocals front and centre and the instrumental touches firmly in the background, filling out the spaces where the vocals don’t reach and padding out a sound that’s decidedly retro but still clear as a bell. Much of the credit for that has to go to the quartet of backing voices drawn from actual original doo-wop outfits like The Teenagers, the Del Vikings and, particularly, the Jive Five, who provide the album’s title track.

There’s a deft touch of swing to the opening Money Honey, with Richards’ guitar prominent in the mix and operating in the less is more school, which is entirely appropriate here. The falsetto kicks in big time on My True Story, heavy on the heartbreak of an ill-fated romance with Eugene Pitt, who sang the Jive Five original, as one of the voices in the background.

The crew sashays their way through Leiber and Stoller’s Ruby Baby at a pretty lively clip while things are slowed down for a smoky reading of Curtis Mayfield’s Gypsy Woman, a prime slice of Impressions’ Chicago soul given a doo wop slant. Ting a Ling, a Number One hit for The Clovers written by Ahmet Ertegun and covered by Buddy Holly, gets a suitably swinging reading.

You might be inclined to slot the Jeff Barry/ Ellie Greenwich/ Phil Spector Be My Baby firmly into girl group Phil Spector Wall of Sound territory, but that’d be forgetting the role doo wop played in the development of that scene. Given how good things have been up to this point, with class oozing out of every selection you might think I’m stretching it when I reckon this is the highlight so far, but the interaction between Neville and the backing quartet is particularly fine here.

And it’s almost as good on the lively take on Little Bitty Pretty One.

The classic tracks continue through Neville’s take on Little Anthony and the Imperials' Tears on My Pillow and The Drifters’ Under the Boardwalk gets the old groove going perfectly before brother Art Neville turns up to sit in Hammond on B-3 for Hank Ballard’s Work with Me Annie.

This Magic Moment segues seamlessly into True Love, with Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) winding up proceedings without, for once, the seemingly obligatory slew of bonus tracks. .

Cut live in the studio with a crackerjack band (Keith Richards and Greg Leisz on guitars, Benmont Tench on organ, Tony Scherr on bass, saxophonist Lenny Pickett and George Receli on drums) My True Story comes across as a genuine period piece, delivered clear as a bell thanks to advances in recording technology with the voices the way they should be and everything else as window dressing.

A seemingly effortless recreation of a long bygone era, delivered with panache and best of all, there are at least a dozen other titles already in the can for a sequel, with Neville suggesting a likelihood of Doo-Wop parts 2, 3 and 4!

Bring ‘em on...

Ron Sexsmith "Forever Endeavour" (4.5*)

It’s all about expectations, really. Not that long time fans will have any delusions about a sudden surge of popularity shooting Ron Sexsmith into the stratosphere of popular success. From the low key French horn producer Mitchell Froom deploys at the start of Nowhere to Go it’s obvious we’re heading straight back into familiar territory, and, really, without some profound change in the Sexsmith vocal cords there isn’t really anywhere else he’s able to go. That built in melancholy works like a charm throughout Forever Endeavour’s beautifully crafted, softly rueful songs dripping with bittersweet reflection.

And if he’s leaning a bit more towards musings on mortality you can’t really blame him. There was a major health scare in the middle of 2011, when a lump was discovered in his throat. The lump turned out to be benign, but it’s the sort of circumstance that tends to concentrate the mind and dominate the thought processes.

Assuming you’ve actually heard the man’s work, from those French horn notes at the beginning to the final notes of the melancholy, melodic The Morning Light, there isn’t anything startlingly new here, which is fine with me. Another collection of low key, well-structured songs with echoes of Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney and traces of other troubadours (a dash of Ray Davies, maybe a jot of Jackson Browne and a dollop of Nick Drake) has a definite place in Hughesy’s playlists.

Mitchell Froom occupied the producer’s chair for Sexsmith’s first three albums, and 2006‘s Time Being and he knows what is needed to take a new bundle of Sexsmith material and wrap it up to optimum effect. There’s an impressive cast of session players (mposters rhythm section Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, with the Calder Quartet there for the strings and Froom deploys them in an unobtrusive autumnal muted orchestration that wraps the meditations on aging, mortality and the need to carry on despite the slings and arrows of past misfortune in entirely sympathetic surroundings.

Nowhere to Go, with that gorgeous French horn at the beginning sets the tone for the rest of the album with references to the gravity of the moment where there’s Nowhere to go but down, and acoustic guitar and simple percussion lead into a wistful discussion about knowing where Nowhere Is that‘s almost jaunty as it gets into the chorus. If Only Avenue with some Duane Eddy guitar takes a rueful glance backwards (With the luxury of hindsight / The past becomes so clear / As I look out on the twilight / My days have become years). There’s a bit of the same in Snake Road‘s reflections on past infidelity, dark days when I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight, couldn’t keep my trousers on though the narrator doesn’t sound overly regretful.

The orchestration’s back, lush and lavish on Blind Eye, Lost In Thought is likely to slip past if you were, but is rather lovely if you’re paying attention, and there’s a major statement of the Sexsmith philosophy of life on Sneak Out The Back Door's portrayal of a relationship falling apart.  He’s never been good at saying good-bye so there’s no surprise about his intentions. Even when my life is over / ... Give my regards to the people in charge / As I sneak out the back door with an absolute minimum of fuss.

Things are slightly more upbeat on Back Of My Hand, with chiming guitars and a Sixties Merseybeat feel. There’s a wistful melancholy retrospectivity to Deepens With Time and while he claims to be having a real good time on Me Myself and Wine the ragtime horns suggest that might not quite be the case. You can, however, count your blessings as he does on She Does My Heart Good, and there’s a zingy instrumental passage mid-song that does just that.

The album proper winds up with The Morning Light, a melancholy, melodic (no surprises there) flourish that brings things to an appropriate finish, though there are the usual bonus tracks tacked onto the end.

From the title Life After a Broken Heart might be expected to veer towards the doom and gloom but comes across as unquaveringly hopeful, but Autumn Light is pretty much as per expectation. Least of My Worries is uncharacteristically jaunty, while Real Pandora delivers a warning about desire and the possibility of lustful excess.

Assessing Forever Endeavour I’m in much the same boat as I found myself in with Richard Thompson’s Electric. Another excellent recording from an a quality songwriter who manages to consistently deliver quality, deftly poetic product.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Allphones Arena Sydney 18 March 2013

Tuesday, 19 March 2013 

I didn't check the time when The Stones' Big Boss Man boomed out across the Allphones Arena, but I'm reliably informed it was 7:25, and a mistake at the end had me thinking we'd had a show that clocked in well over three hours, but the times on display in the Olympic Park station and a subsequent check on the phone suggested a running time around the two and three quarter hour mark.

That might have made it the shortest of the three but what it dropped in time it definitely made up for in sheer oomph.

It also put the kibosh on any notions that someone backstage had been watching the audience filing in and saying Hang on, they're not all in yet.

Or maybe someone had been and Bruce decided enough was enough.

In any case, the three song opening salvo had each title getting a first airing for the tour. American Land was a belated St Patrick's Day offering, and had me reflecting how much Bruce's current style, repertoire and modus operandi has been shaped by The Seeger Sessions album and extensive touring. That has probably been obvious for a while, but American Land and the mid-set Pay Me My Money Down helped underline it.

But it's not all new direction, and a Prove It All Night had the long term fans roaring along before a sign request produced Adam Raised a Cain. Bruce actually grabbed two placards from the pit, returning the one that produced Adam, and stowing the other, seemingly for future reference or souvenir purposes. It'd be interesting to know what was on the orange Day-Glo one...

Things seem to have settled down into a regular pattern as far as the next bit is concerned, with Wrecking Ball and Death to My Hometown holding down roughly the same slots each night once the opening salvo is out of the way.

There's obviously a point being made, and once it had been it seems there's a recognition that things need to be lightened a bit, and Hungry Heart certainly did that. The crowd roared out the first verse, Bruce took a wander along the side around to the walkway behind the pit and surfed his way back to the stage.

This section of the show seemed to be heading into formula territory with My City of Ruins delivering the regular remembering the old faces and acknowledging the new routine. Working the front of the pit Bruce found another youngster, got a quick acknowledgement of the relative youthfullness of the identified party and seems to have settled into grabbing them for a singalong in Waitin’ On a Sunny Day.

Spirit in the Night seems to have grabbed a regular mid-set spot, and had the silence for those who are no longer with us bit, and from there, with what seemed like a couple of formalities out of the way things headed off towards let's loosen things up territory with High Hopes, Youngstown and (the one I'd really been waiting for) Candy's Room.

High Hopes works very well, Youngstown rocked with righteous anger and frustration and segued quickly into that characteristic drum pattern that signifies an impending visit to Candy's Room, which soared the way it should do and morphed very nicely into She's the One.


As Bruce started a your butt is going to start moving of its own volition rap after StO I thought we were in for another Open All Night, which had been my highlight of the previous show. That didn't eventuate, but a rousing Pay Me My Money Down worked the same sort of territory and made for a more than adequate substitute.

From there it was back to set piece territory, with Shackled and Drawn a regular inclusion that needed to be followed by something lighter. Waitin’ on a Sunny Day certainly fits the bill in that department, and the slightly different angle this time around gave a head on view of the interaction that got the singalong kid onto the walkway in front of the pit.

You can't help wondering how long this one will continue, and while you can spot it coming it's the sort of thing that's guaranteed to deliver a roar of approval from the audience. Calculated? Quite possibly. A bit of fun? Quite definitely.

It's also the cue that we're heading into the succession of heavy hits that's going to round out the main set, and this time around that started with The Rising, delivered another powerful Springsteen-Morello double act on The Ghost of Tom Joad and ran out through Badlands, Thunder Road and Born to Run.

The encore bracket (Seven Nights to Rock, Dancing in the Dark and the seemingly inevitable Tenth Avenue Freeze-out wound things up rather nicely.


Setlist:

American Land

Prove It All Night

Adam Raised a Cain 

Wrecking Ball

Death to My Hometown

Hungry Heart

My City of Ruins

Spirit in the Night

High Hopes

Youngstown

Candy's Room

She's the One

Pay Me My Money Down 

Shackled and Drawn

Waitin' on a Sunny Day

The Rising

The Ghost of Tom Joad

Badlands 

Thunder Road

Born to Run

Encore:

Seven Nights to Rock 

Dancing in the Dark

Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Brisbane Entertainment Centre 16 March 2013

Sunday, 17 March 2013

I've had people tell me I have a drinking problem, and I’ll reluctantly concede that (maybe) it's quite possible I do, but there's no way known I'd be leaving my seat during a Springsteen concert in a shout for shout quest for rum and coke. Years ago we had a coaching trinity in the local school cricket fraternity, where the third member, assuming himself to be the Holy Spirit, adopted the moniker Rum and Coke, but in the presence of a performer as messianic and downright riveting as Bruce Springsteen I would have thought sitting tight and taking in every detail was almost mandatory.

That taking in every detail enters considerations because the dude beside me, apart from the regular excursions to the bar, spent a great deal of time doing something that seemed to involve tapping away on a miniature keyboard on his smart phone. I'm not sure what it was, though it may well have been something involving Twitter or some other social media engine, because I was absorbed in taking in every detail, wasn't I?

And from the start of High Hopes, recorded for a Greatest Hits or similar package a fair while back there was plenty of detail to note, particularly given the much better perspective you get from looking down on the stage.

High Hopes was followed by a rousing and robust Promised Land, the seemingly obligatory when it's the title track of the current album and the label for the whole tour shebang Wrecking Ball, and Death to My Hometown, which was certainly rousing and delivered with passion aplenty, but I hope it gets a rest in Sydney on Monday night.

Out in the Street went down rather well in all quarters, while My City of Ruins and Spirit in the Night are another couple of tracks that look like candidates for every show status. City works well in the wake of recent events, and Spirit gives an opportunity for the Clarence/Jake thing, so I'm not objecting on either front.

In any case, how can you object when Bruce follows those two set pieces with Incident on 57th Street, The River, Atlantic City and Open All Night?

The first three of that quartet were merely great, but the rock and rolling Open All Night was, for me anyway, the highlight of the evening. It rocked, it rolled, it swung and it boogied set to bust without quite managing to actually do so. Bust, that is. It certainly delivered in spades on all other fronts. Great stuff.

After that, Darlington County and Shackled and Drawn might have been a let down, but they roared along just fine, maintaining a definite momentum into Waitin' on a Sunny Day where we got one of those moments that would probably look corny, fake and showbizzy in other hands, but worked beautifully here.

Earlier in proceedings during the soul interlude in My City of Ruins Bruce had been working the front of the stage when he'd paused midstream in a monologue about continuity to ask a kid who must have been right there in the front row how old he was. Eleven was the reply.

Bruce’s response? And we'll be doing this (or still doing this or words to that effect) when you bring your eleven year-old son to the show! Fine, fair enough, a bit of hyperbole perhaps, but it's a nice thought.

Now, midway through Sunny Day he hauls this kid up (maybe not the same kid, but if it wasn't there were two in very close front row proximity) and hands him the microphone. The kid's not going to be chased down by competing record companies any time soon, but he had a go, delivered a rather ordinary performance, and nobody minded because all the rest of us were probably just as bad. But it worked...


It was good to hear Racing in the Street, which is one of my favourite Bruce as everyday dude with a passion songs, and Badlands was another one I'd been hoping for that hadn't gained a guernsey on Thursday night. Tom Morello was a bit more subdued than he'd been on Thursday night, but really cut loose on The Ghost of Tom Joad, and Land of Hope and Dreams brought the main set to a stirring close. I would have liked to have been on the receiving end of one of those rock'n'holy roller raves Bruce has been known to deliver in LoHaD, but it didn't happen, so there you go.

A girl down the front had been brandishing a Blinded by the E Street Light sign all night, and that seemingly influenced the selection that opened the encore. Conversation revealed it was her favourite track, and she liked to dance to it, but Bruce had already decided to embark on a solo acoustic rendition, claiming to be unsure whether he could remember it and suggesting he'd probably stuff it up.

Again, like much Bruce's shtick, you might see this sort of thing as contrived and acted out, but if it is he's a mighty skilled contriver, and a better than average actor. A bit of finding his way, a visual oh yeah, that's it, and he was off into a reading that certainly looked unplanned.

There probably wasn't anything unplanned about the three song salvo that followed, though. Born to Run is one of those ones everybody probably expects to hear, and the encore is probably a good place to hear it, Bobby Jean was a fairly obvious choice when you're looking for a good time rocker to help wind things up, Dancing in the Dark is another of the obvious suspects and you can't help thinking Tenth Avenue Freeze-out is the finale of choice these days, with its opportunity to remember Clarence and Danny, so you can't really complain about getting it twice.

The remembering the ghosts that walk beside us bit didn't get the silence I seemed to recall from Thursday (I was sure it had happened but maybe it was my imagination) but that just underlines the variability of the Springsteen setlist.

There's a definite appearance of planning, and you'd have to reckon the set list is carefully planned in advance, delivering a variety of songs people sort of expect to hear (given the size of the back catalogue you can't include them all and have time for the other elements) along with a couple from the latest album, a few that reflect current concerns and a couple that are there for the hard core fans who do multiple nights and are looking for an obscurity or three.

At the same time, while everything's probably planned out, with the basic structure possibly being done well in advance, there's a definite appearance of a willingness to throw away the script and fly by the seat of the pants if the mood strikes.

As I remarked in my look at Thursday night's show, back at the start, I'd had slight and momentary misgivings about the wisdom of going for three in a row (not that there's much chance of getting to non-sequential multiples when you live where I do) but those had been pretty well blown away by the end of Thursday night.

Now, faced with the prospect of a single remaining show I'm regretting I didn't (at least) book a seat for Sydney Two. After the show on Monday those regrets will probably have multiplied, and next time I'll definitely be looking at more than three. Given my other tastes you might think that Bruce is a little close to the mainstream, but based on two shows and the prospect of a third, Bruce goes on to join Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson as next time I'm going to the lot of 'em candidates.

Neil Young's in there too, of course, and hopefully the next time Bruce and Neil tour they'll do so with sufficient separation between tours so certain old fogeys can rest and recuperate between tours as well as between shows...


Setlist:

High Hopes 

The Promised Land 

Wrecking Ball

Death to My Hometown

Out in the Street 

My City of Ruins

Spirit in the Night

Incident on 57th Street 

The River

Atlantic City

Open All Night

Darlington County 

Shackled and Drawn

Waitin' on a Sunny Day

Racing in the Street

Badlands 

The Ghost of Tom Joad

Land of Hope and Dreams 

Encore:

Blinded By the Light (solo acoustic) 

Born to Run

Bobby Jean 

Dancing in the Dark

Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Brisbane Entertainment Centre 14 March 2013

Friday, 15 March 2013

In some ways, I guess, you might expect a juggernaut to take a bit of time to get moving. Inertia and all that, a need for time to gather momentum.

I wasn't completely blown away by the first couple of numbers in last night's Springsteen show, and it may have had something to do with the fact we're looking at a fifteen piece outfit coming off a three month break between tours. Takes a little bit of time to get things meshing tightly together and all that. I guess it happens.

Then again, it might be me. There were a couple of non-Bruce elements that impinged on the opening salvo from a quite magnificent outfit, and maybe it was more a case of Hughesy getting himself into the swing of things rather than Bruce and company needing time to get the gears meshing in the required manner.

I'd arrived in plenty of time, noted the existence of what looked like queues for the GA (non-seated) part of the house, and encountered an acquaintance from years back who has gone on to carve out his own little niche in the Music business. With the show allegedly due to start shortly after seven Watto cast an evaluatory eye over the situation and remarked that they'd be pushing to get things away on time.

In any case I was inside and seated comfortably before seven, watching from my space on the floor, trying to figure out why I wasn't where I thought I was supposed to be and wondering how long it was going to take to have them usher the crowd to their allocated seats once they'd deigned to leave the bar. By seven-thirty most of the crowd were in and seated, but there seemed to be a bit of coming and going. I hoped no one was watching and saying "Hang on, they're not all in yet."

That coming and going also reminded me that I really should have bought water on the way in. Do it now? Go back out, snaffle a bottle and probably miss the start? Be forced to negotiate my way back to the seat in the middle of the row past people out to max out their concert enjoyment? Naah. Sit it out and wait.

Lastly, having decided from the Neil experience that a seat in the banked sections on the side wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as people made their way to the allocated seats on the floor I realized there were going to be visibility issues once people in front started to stand.

Later checks on the seating arrangements delivered a clear distinction between A Reserve Lower Circle (Section 11) and B Reserve Floor (Section S11) that obviously hadn't been obvious when I booked the tickets three months back.

In any case, regardless of what actually caused the impression that things took a while to get moving, it doesn't matter because four numbers into the set everything was rocking along quite wonderfully in a set that ran to a good three hours.

Sirens blaring and everything bar the kitchen sink thumping and blaring along, We Take Care of Our Own was probably a predictable choice for an opener, but given that three month break (or the other factors, take your pick it's six of one and half a dozen of t'other) I had a definite sense of things not quite meshing the way they should, and following it with a cover of The Saints' Just Like Fire Would might have been a nod to one of Brisbane's most noted bands but wasn't likely to set the arena into paroxysms of ecstasy.

It's not as if The Saints are a household name in these parts and I, for one, wasn't familiar with the track, what with All Fools Day slipping past my guard back in what I've been known to label The Wilderness Years. When you're talking iconic Brisbane songs they aren't exactly thick on the ground. It might have been interesting to see an E Street version of I'm Stranded, but you wouldn't be holding your breath. Maybe the three guitars doing an acoustic Cattle and Cane, but that wouldn't have worked coming after We Take Care of Our Own, would it?

Wrecking Ball was starting to get things together, but when they launched into Badlands any bugs that had been there from the start had seemingly sorted themselves out and I was resigned to the fact that it was going to be an up and down sort of show depending on what the substantial section of the crowd in front of where I was sitting was doing and which part of it was doing it.

Now, I realize you've probably got no business sitting at a Bruce concert, but if you're going to put seats into a flattish area you either need a bit of a slope or else they shouldn't be there at all. End of story.

Badlands, however, was where things really got themselves together and from that point there was no (or very little, unless you were inclined to dwell on the start) looking back. You're possibly not inclined to roar along with We Take Care of Our Own early on (though you may well be doing so later), and Wrecking Ball's in much the same boat, but the anthemic Badlands, well, that's different. A chorus that begs you to give voice to the frustrations, and there was a goodly bunch of throats around the auditorium that did.

Having loosened things up that way, Death to My Hometown worked better than its Wrecking Ball colleagues had done earlier, and Hungry Heart got the voices roaring again. Not the sort of thing you'd have been looking for if you were taping the show, perhaps, but as far as getting the audience in is concerned...

There was a heartfelt introduction to My City of Ruins, referring to the natural disaster of Hurricane Sandy, and Spirit in the Night jived and gyrated along, working that R&B groove for all it was worth and bringing Jake Clemons into the spotlight role formerly filled by Uncle Clarence.

Clarence's passing brought its share of anguish at the time, and continues to do so as the encore demonstrated, but the most significant issue that came out of it was how to fill the sizeable hole he'd left in the stage presence. Replace one man with another and you're bound to get comparisons. Replace one man with something demonstrably different (a relative as part of an enhanced brass section) and you're adding some different sonic possibilities. Make the horn section something that's individually mic'ed rather than blowing into a fixed object and you've got further possibilities in the visual dynamics department.

It was around Spirit in the Night that those matters became a bit more evident as far as Hughesy was concerned, and The E Street Shuffle reinforced the same conclusion. Around this point in the show there was the first of a number of references to The E Street Band as a show band, and Bruce seemed quite determined to emphasize what I took to be a reference to the bands that worked the Irish circuit from the mid-fifties through to the end of the seventies and provided the inspiration for The Commitments in the movie and the Roddy Doyle novel.

I'd seen passing references to this particularly Irish phenomenon, but a wander over into the Wikipedia suggested an outfit based on the internationally popular six or seven piece dance band with a repertoire that ranged from rock and roll and country and western songs to traditional dixieland jazz ... Irish traditional and Céilidh music.

Usually comprising a rhythm section, lead guitar and keyboards augmented by a brass section, this isn't, from where I'm sitting, a million miles away from the E Streeters anyway, and when the Wikipedia goes on to refer to the fact that they usually played standing up, rather than sitting a la the earlier Big Bands, and created momentum by playing while stepping, dipping and bopping in the manner of Bill Haley & His Comets, and the more successful bands toured Irish clubs located in Britain, the United States and Canada.

Later comments in the lead up to The Apollo Medley made it quite clear Bruce and his Jersey Shore confreres spent a lot of time studying the great soul and R&B performers. looks like his Irish ancestry might have exposed him to something that didn't have quite the same cachet but is increasingly coming out in his more recent work.

There was definitely something familiar about the everybody lined out across the front of the stage routine that became a recurrent sight through the show and had a certain uncannily familiar je ne sais quoi about it. On subsequent reflection I'm inclined to put it down to a substantial dose of the Michael Flatleys...

That's not a put down, by the way, more an identification of what looks like a deliberate decision to add an element that definitely works in the theatrical sense.

Theatrics weren't quite as much to the fore during Jack of All Trades, which was one that got the crowd off their feet, but they were back up for Murder Incorporated and a very rocky Johnny 99. It was easy to pick the opening of Because the Night, and equally easy to roar along, and as the band headed off into She's the One I started wondering whether we might get some of the didgeridoo meets Bo Diddley beat Bruce used to favour in the seventies in the old Mona > She's the One medley back in the (bootleg) day.

Shackled and Drawn had things back in Celtic show band mode, and Waitin' on a Sunny Day had the audience participation factor right up where the tapers would prefer it wasn't before the Apollo Medley (basically, in this incarnation The Way You Do the Things You Do > 6345789) delivered an exercise in working the crowd for all it was worth. Having studied at the feet of a few masters, Bruce delivered a master class of his own.

The Rising rose and roared, Tom Morello came to the fore with some stunningly atmospheric guitar work on The Ghost of Tom Joad and Thunder Road brought the main part of the proceedings to a close in a suitably robust fashion.

There were a number of candidates for inclusion in the subsequent obligatory encore that had already appeared in the evening's set list, and We Are Alive mightn't have seemed an obvious candidate to kick off the encore proceedings, but I thought it worked rather well, with a bit of Bruce storytelling leading into the number itself. In these situations I think it pays to have them sit down and regather the strength before you get 'em back up on their feet again.

And that back up on the feet again is what you want to wind up an evening, isn't it?

Born to Run, Glory Days and Dancing in the Dark might all be likely candidates for the encore, and you might be looking for something less obvious if you're a gnarled veteran of multiple shows over numerous tours, but if Bruce decides to go with the more obvious candidates at my first show, that's fine with me. I'd been waiting something like thirty years in the wilds of North Queensland to break my Bruce duck, so whatever appeared first time around was fine with me.

Tenth Avenue Freeze-out as the closing track was, however, a master stroke, producing Bruce’s third foray into the crowd, images of Clarence and Danny on the big screen and delivering a master class as a great performer worked the audience into where he wanted them to wind things up.

I'd be lying if I denied that, around a minute and a half into We Take Care of Our Own, I wasn't having some misgivings about the wisdom of signing on for three shows, but Badlands took care of that, thank you very much, and I'll be out there bright and early for Saturday's show and on to Sydney.

Setlist:
We Take Care of Our Own
Just Like Fire Would
Wrecking Ball
Badlands
Death to My Hometown
Hungry Heart
My City of Ruins
Spirit in the Night
The E Street Shuffle
Jack of All Trades
Murder Incorporated
Johnny 99
Because the Night
She's the One
Shackled and Drawn
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Apollo Medley
The Rising
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Thunder Road
Encore:
We Are Alive
Born to Run
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

Neil Young: Brisbane and Sydney March 2013

Thursday, 14 March 2013

For a while, fool that I was (and, arguably, still am) I was thinking two Neil Young and Crazy Horse concerts would be enough.

Predictably, they're not, though any attempt to increase the NY/CH quotient would result in an automatic reduction in the Springsteen allocation over the next week or so. Sure, I could have headed on to Melbourne for another two shows during the week and weaken in my resolve to avoid winery shows on the weekend, but that'd rule out the two Bruce shows in Brisbane. Oh well...

Looking at these matters in the cold hard light of rational reality, you might think two Horse-driven shows are at least one more than necessary, and on a strictly rational application of logic you might have a point.

I landed in Brisbane pretty sure of what I was going to be getting.

Over the years, watching these matters from a distance, there's an invariable wow, he played that! factor on the first show or two of a tour, but after the second, or maybe the third assuming you're looking at something lengthier than a ten-show swing across Australia and New Zealand, things are more or less set in stone and there's not much room for variation.

In other settings, with other musicians, you might find a bit of variation in the set list, but when we're talking Neil and The Horse you might as well forget it. "They all sound the same," some Frenchman in the crowd called out in 1996, producing a Neil riposte suggesting that it's all one song.

Which it is. Neil dons the harmonica brace for Heart of Gold and Twisted Road, and heads over to sit behind the piano (the upright piano, which explains the girl carrying the guitar case) for Singer Without a Song but for the rest of the just under two and a quarter hours it's fairly obvious what you're going to get.

Anyone walking out of one of these shows and lamenting the absence of the hits either failed to notice the & Crazy Horse on the ticket, or hasn't realized the significance of the two words after the ampersand. This is the behaviour Rusties (members of the on-line aggregation of Neil fans a.k.a. The Rust list) and Winterlongers (the Australian subset thereof) characterize as HoGTT territory.

And if you are, in fact, a Heart of Gold Toe Tapper who wants a set list heavy on Harvest, Comes a Time, Harvest Moon and Silver & Gold you either don't shell out the bucks for a Crazy Horse show  or, having realized your mistake, cop it sweet and exercise due diligence next time around, because, somehow, I don't think Neil's going to be changing his modus operandi Horse-wise any time soon.

But if you're there for loud and electric you're almost guaranteed a good time.

That almost comes with a nod in the direction of well, you do realize he'll be playing a selection of his most recent stuff, don't you?

Assuming you've got all those bases covered (loud, electric, will contain recent material so there's not much room for older material) you're almost certainly in for a good time, from the opening chords of Love and Only Love to the last squalls of feedback at the end of My My Hey Hey and on through whatever Neil decides is going to constitute the encore this time around.

Love and Only Love, from where I'm sitting is close to the ideal opener in these circumstances, driven by a solid riff that allows the quartet to stretch a bit and blow whatever cobwebs might be in the vicinity away. That, I think, is an important consideration. Crazy Horse, in all it's ragged garage band glory, doesn't sit in the virtuoso I practice two to three hours every day, man sphere, and they need a chance to loosen up and find the groove. Love and Only Love certainly allows them to do that.

With the preliminaries out of the way, the groove located and the beast warmed up it's sort of into Greatest Hits mode for Powderfinger, which mightn't have been an actual hit, but occupies a significant place in Neil's epic repertoire. A nod to Rust Never Sleeps, and a classic song that's an almost perfectly self-contained saga.

From there Born in Ontario occupies the same sort of role as its cousin brother Homegrown, delivering a chunk of stomp along groove that equates to a bit of light and shade after Powderfinger in the lead up to what you'd have to describe as the first real set piece on the show.

Walk Like a Giant comes across pretty strongly as one of the centre pieces on Psychedelic Pill, but on stage it reveals a sense of rage that doesn't quite come across in the studio version. That's most obvious towards the end when plastic bags and sheets of newspaper start drifting across the stage as Neil and Old Black deliver squalls of sonic assault that equate to the end of the world as we know it.

That's my take on it, anyway. Walk Like a Giant takes the inner rage Neil mentions in Ontario and turns it into an apocalyptic vision that's diametrically opposed to the old T.S. Eliot not with a bang, with a whimper. It seems, as far as Neil is concerned, we're not going quietly into the night....

The environmental apocalypse gets another airing in Hole in the Sky, one of two so far unrecorded numbers in a fairly small setlist, and it may stay unrecorded because it may only exist as a wind down from what went before leading into an acoustic mini set in the middle of proceedings. Lyrically, it's a case of There's a hole in the sky and not much more, but the Horse harmonies help it work in ways a more verbose statement mightn't.

Both nights the appearance of the acoustic guitar and the neck brace produced a fairly hearty roar, suggesting the presence of a healthy contingent of HoGTTs and a strong hint of finally, here's something we know. Predictably, something we know turned out to be Heart of Gold, which might have been something but probably didn’t equate to much if you’re coming out of HoGTT Territory.

From there we got Twisted Road, another one I could have done without but can appreciate the reasons for its existence and inclusion in that particular slot.

And it's obvious there is a certain amount of thought that has gone into the presentation for these shows. Neil obviously wants a piano song in there, otherwise the piano wouldn't be there, and Singer Without a Song is going to be it. Seat him behind the old-fashioned upright on stage right, however, and he's out of sight of a fair section of audience. Billy Talbot's on stage to deliver some harmonies, and Poncho Sampedro has an acoustic guitar around his neck, but there's not much visual interest there. In that setting an attractive girl carrying a guitar case adds something. At least that's the way it looked from where I was sitting.

With the quiet bit out of the way the volume went back up for the second set piece, the quite magnificent Ramada Inn, like Walk Like a Giant one of the centre pieces of Psychedelic Pill, twenty minutes of thunder leavened with the harmonies on the And every morning comes the sun bit. HoGTTs can moan all they like about unfamiliar material and the lack of the likes of Down by the River, Cortez the Killer and Like a Hurricane, and, admittedly it would be nice to hear them, but when Neil can still produce something that's this good I, for one, won't be complaining.

Your mileage may vary on this, but the thirst piece highlight comes in the form of the mildly notorious Fuckin’ Up, which has been a regular part of the setlist since Ragged Glory and has evolved into an interesting piece of staged presentation that really takes off if the right people with the right gestures are in Neil and Poncho's line of sight. There was a fairly substantial Winterlong contingent along the rail, and they were right into goading and gesticulation mode, which made for some interesting visuals on the big screens on either side of the stage.

Not that they were looking at the big picture, of course.

After Sydney I ran a remark about his moment of prominence past the inimitable Stub King and got a Was I? In return, which of course explains why he ended up on the screen in the first place. It's fairly obvious Neil and Poncho are having fun with the current version, and that, I suspect helped shape what followed.

I've heard my share of concert recordings over the years, and most of them have been fairly light on for the on stage repartee, but something has changed over recent years.  Where once you might be lucky to get anything beyond a couple of How ya doin?s, the time machine sequence that leads into Cinnamon Girl is positively verbose, with wry remarks about those in the audience who wouldn't have been there yet as far as Zuma and Tonight's the Night are concerned.

Cinnamon Girl rocked, My My Hey Hey did likewise and you really got a sense of the mount of fun Neil and the Horse are having on stage when it gets to the obligatory encore. Perth had Roll Another Number, Adelaide got Like a Hurricane and I would have been happy to see LaH reprised in Brisbane or Sydney.

Instead, in Brisbane they led off with Opera Star (not played since the European tour in 2001) before heading off to Roll Another Number, while in Sydney two chords were all I needed to recognize Prisoners of Rock & Roll, which segued nicely into Opera Star.

Looking back, you might be inclined to think, despite Hughesy's enthusiasm, that one show is about enough, but with the interval between Sydney and the time this review makes its way onto the blog and into the Reviews section of the website there's one additional factor that suggests it's a case of too much Neil isn't nearly enough.

I refer, of course, to Wednesday's show at The Plenary, with Cortez the Killer, Dangerbird, Barstool Blues and Sedan Delivery turning up in the set list in a show that ran close to three hours.

Neil's inclined to the predictable once things have started moving but that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to stay that way. After two quite stellar shows you might be disappointed to have missed one that sailed right off into the stratosphere, but that's the way things are.

Should Neil be headed back this way with The Horse in tow, Hughesy's going, come hell or high water. Now for a triple serving of Bruce...