Dan Costello – Live at the Bowery, Edinburgh, Monday 7th September 2009
This was a low key and extremely welcome return for my favourite Edinburgh venue, after a hiatus enforced by the Festival cider whores. There’s just something nice about the Bowery, probably because it’s such an unlikely space. It doesn’t actually feel like a bar or a venue in the way that you might have such places in your head, it’s a little more accidental than that.
Ruth and Jane who run the place have an enduring fascination with all things New York, and their ongoing mission to bring everyone from that city who has ever so much as heard the term anti-folk to play over here must surely be nearing completion. The latest was a chap called Dan Costello, who I have to confess I had never heard of before this evening.
He was supported by local gentleman Wounded Knee, who uses a loop pedal and a microphone in place of what might more traditionally be called instruments. There’s no thinness to the sound at all, but Drew’s music is probably what you would describe as being at the experimental end of things, and I have to confess I am yet to really understand it. I’ve not seen him that often though, and I get the impression his is a sound to which you have to acclimatise a little before you can even tell if you like it or not, so I’ll withhold any kind of opinion until I’m a little less green, I think.
Costello himself was charming and entertaining. His performance was full of child-like innocence, although his lyrics had more than enough sharp humour to them to suggest that he is more than just a wide-eyed ingenue. He sang some straightforward anti-folk stuff – a performance somewhere inbetween the likes of Adam Green and Turner Cody, albeit far less arch than either – read a story in which half the room had to pretend to be the wind and half a little yellow cat, sang a rap song imagined in the style of Woody Guthrie and read aloud from a manual on avoiding ambiguous writing.
I think it was these random leaps of attention which made the show, for me. Too much of any one and I might have begun to weary a little, and started to think of his performance as a schtick of some sort, but the light and breezy way he flitted from one topic, one style, one random thought to another, and the charming sincerity of the man meant that his set never lost its verve. I enjoyed his music, particularly liked his way with a lyric, and generally enjoyed the show a great deal. I may not have become an impassioned convert exactly, but this was a good evening, and really nice way to get back on track after the whirlwind of the festival.
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