Song, by Toad

When Willy Mason played The Borderline in London a few years ago he produced one of the best, most utterly magnetic live performances it has ever been my privilege to witness. I was looking forward to this one, and reading The Daily Growl this morning I realised there was a good chance of seeing Elvis Perkins as well, so I made sure I dragged the unfortunate Mrs. Toad there nice and early.

I was pretty complimentary about Elvis Perkins’ forthcoming album (recent album, if you’re in God Bless America) but maybe not as complimentary as I may have been had I seen this performance before I wrote that post or heard the album for the first time.

If you read Tim’s Review on The Daily Growl you’ll see he calls Perkins substantial. This is a good way to describe it. He’s not showy, not all that forceful even, and you don’t come out of the gig feeling that you know much more about the music than you did before. What you do come out of it thinking is that you have just seen the real deal.

In the place of the showboating, the drive or the unhinged passion of many groups that do a great live set, there’s something understated, confident and utterly certain about Elvis Perkins. It gives his music tremendous gravitas and makes sure it hits home calmly but surely. He even cut loose and unleashed a bit of marching band trombone action for his penultimate number before closing with the opener from his album, the quiet and completely wonderful While You Were Sleeping. I will be keeping a far closer eye on him in years to come, that is for certain.

Buy his album, my little Band of Toads, you really won’t be disappointed.

Elvis Perkins – All the Night Without Love
Elvis Perkins – While You Were Sleeping

Willy Mason, after this, was a bit of a disappointment, but by the end demonstrated exactly why: he had a band with him and he really, really didn’t need one. His recorded music benefits very well from having his simple, sad acoustic songs filled out with upright bass and some guitars to add to the texture. Live, on the other hand, it is just a distraction.

When I saw him at The Borderline he filled a room completely with just him and his acoustic guitar. He is talented guitarist indeed, and I have rarely seen anyone create so rich a sound on his own. Add the soulful sadness of his voice and, honestly, the effect was just phenomenal.

Here his playing was disguised by too much accompaniment and the effect on Willy himself of having a band was that it seemed to encourage him to hide. He played almost his entire encore solo and the difference was like night and day. He was talking to us again, and his shy charisma shone through almost immediately. Suddenly there were silences in the music as well – he would play a note or strum a chord and just let it sit there, diffusing into the room.  I never thought I’d notice the gaps between the notes make such a profound difference – it always sounded like the sort of pretentious bollocks grown up music reviewers say because they can’t think of all that many ways to say something was good.

Basically, instead of an indeterminate ‘band noise’ fuzzing over the subtleties, suddenly every note counted. You could hear them fade, you knew why he played so few at times, and it led you through the music making it so much more poignant and direct. His encore earned more applause and more affection that the whole rest of the set put together. I can’t imagine how lonely and boring it would be to tour an entire continent by yourself, but Willy Mason needs to be heard by himself to really be heard, I think.

Willy Mason – All You Can Do From Where the Humans Eat
Willy Mason – Not Lie Down B-Side to Oxygen
Willy Mason – World That I Wanted Live on KCRW
Willy Mason – We Can Be Strong From If the Ocean Gets Rough