Willard Grant Conspiracy – Live, Sneaky Pete’s Edinburgh, Wednesday 9th September 2009
It’s funny to note when you part ways with your gig-going peers. I went along to see X Lion Tamer and the Pineapple Chunks at the Electric Circus on Tuesday, perfectly confident that I would bump into people I knew at the gig. I rarely ever think twice about going to gigs by myself for two main reasons: partly because I am quite happy to be at a show by myself in the first place, because that means not having to apologise if it’s shit; and partly because I am pretty confident that at most shows I am going to bump into someone I know anyway.
That’s not always the case, however. I recently went to see Barry Adamson and was surrounded by a very different crowd than usual, and last night at Sneaky Pete’s the same thing happened: an older crowd, not one of whom I recognised.
That’s no real issue, of course, because that really isn’t why I go to gigs. In this case, I have seen the Willard Grant Conspiracy three times before, and all three times have been drastically different gigs, which sort of makes the songs feel like old friends. You’ve seen them in their garage rock phase, their vulnerable acoustic phase and their grandiose orchestral phase and I really think that helps you get to know a song a lot more intimately than you might otherwise.
The performance at Sneaky Pete’s was happily intimate for a venue which I’d tend to describe as a grungy indie club. The stage lights were out of commission so the only light available was a still image from the projector, which happened to really suit the atmosphere. The band and some of the audience were seated, which further added to the relaxed ambience, and Robert Fisher’s relaxed, friendly way with an audience brought a feeling of calm and contentment to everyone. No-one talked through the performance, either. I liked that.
Given the shifting membership of the Willard Grant Conspiracy you rarely get the same gig twice, and the songs don’t seem to exist in any pre-defined sense, more as a collection of ideas which drift around loosely in one another’s company until they are pulled out out of the ether by a performance, coalescing around whatever arrangement of musicians happens to draw them out at the time.
This setup was based around fiddle, a second guitar and a female backing singer, a couple of whom were drawn from support band The Doghouse Roses, who I unfortunately arrived too late to see. It was a simple arrangement, and one which presented Fisher’s warm, enveloping songs with a satisfying lack of artifice. The band embellished enough to bring depth to the sound, and the fiddle was gorgeous, but at its core this was a very stripped back acoustic performance.
The set was something of a greatest hits collection, closely related to the recent release of Paper Covers Stone, an album of minimalistically re-worked versions of existing WGC tunes, suggesting that there are songs amongst his canon for which Fisher himself has a notable preference. His voice shifts gear dramatically from thunderous to intimate and sitting close up in a small venue it has amazing impact. You can never tell if he is furiously angry with the world, or trying to sympathetically console it for its woes, but the emotion is powerful and unavoidable in a Willard Grant Conspiracy set, whatever the setup.
Between that and the unexpectedly cosy atmosphere in Sneaky Pete’s I found myself split between wishing that some of my other music friends had been there to see it, and quietly pleased to have such a wonderful gig to enjoy by myself.
Willard Grant Conspiracy – Notes From the Waiting Room
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Willard Grant Conspiracy – Fare Thee Well
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