Thursday, November 24, 2011

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Hammersmith Apollo 24th November

A seated gig with two sets, and the last night of their European tour. We seemed to be seated in 'the fan's area.'

The two stood on a small carpet (viz their Jools Holland performance, screened the previous night) deliberately reminiscent of a band on The Grand Ole Opry. Unsurprisingly, they were superb and the audience was blown away, not least on the astounding 'Time: The Revelator' which made me reconsider my claims for 'Re: Stacks' in the Bon Iver post below.

Good encores included Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' and a driving 'Jackson.'

I particularly liked the lyric on the new album The Harrow and The Harvest 'That's the way that it goes / everybody's buying little baby clothes,' a sentiment not found on previous albums. I also like the lyric in Prince's overlooked classic 'Vicki Waiting' from 1989 in which he says

talk of children still frightens me
is my character enough to be
one that deserves a copy made
this I one day hope to see

It's good to see songwriters addressing different issues as they grow older.

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