Melbourne Music & Blues festival.

[tyggerjai]

The Waifs

The Waifs are a tight, solid country/blues four piece. They play well together, and have an onstage rapport that makes their sound really come alive. The female vocalists have voices capable of both power and feeling, and their harmonies are lovely. Their music is a little formulaic, but it is country/blues, a genre conisting largely of "set piece" chord progressions and riffs, where talent is judged on the execution, rather than "original" composition. The other trick, of course, is matching lyrics and emotional tone to the music, and that The Waifs do well, showing a mastery of everything from slow ballads to hard, four on the floor country rock. In short, if you like your blues with a country edge, do not miss The Waifs. They're playing the Athaneum early March - I thoroughly recommend them.

Beth Orton

Beth Orton is a somewhat more adventurous songwriter, and has not yet, perhaps, grown into full control of her talent. With a band consisting of drums, keyboard, violin, cello, double bass, and herself on guitar and vocals, her songs tended to wander both in construction and orchestration. Complexity for its own sake is never desirable, and with a large band and a desire to go beyond basic 12-bar blues, it can be very easy to let the music distract you from the song. Orton has a few songs that are simpler and cleaner, that showcase her obvious talent as singer, guitarist and a lyricist, but even they seemed to be yearning to break into an undisciplined musical form of free association. Sometimes less is more.

Ani diFranco

Ani is the act I went for, and she didn't disappoint. I already know she's incredibly talented as a lyricist and songwriter - she's eclectic and original, and steps beautifully between acoustic guitar and less conventonal electronic music forms. Having heard some of her live recordings, what I really wanted to see was angry-chick-with-a-guitar, and that's what I got. Ani's on the small side, but she manages to command a large stage and a big crowd. Presence, and lots of it. Energy, and lots of it - her guitars all have wireless pickups so that she can bound, unfettered around the stage - and yet able to step back and connect fairly intimately with her audience. She didn't, alas, do many songs I really knew and loved, but she's awfully prolific, and I was happy to listen to new stuff - it's all very Ani. All in all, I was rapt. Go see this girl. She rocks.

Some guy called Dillon.
The closing act was Bob Dillon, an aging rock star who apparently had a hit in the 50s with "Hey Mister BoJangles.", and sank promptly into obscurity. Oddly, he seemed not to play his one great hit tonight - I think. Dillon was a notorious substance abuser during his eighties (or perhaps the Eighties - google was less than clear about that), a lifestyle that has left him unable to walk, sing, or play a musical instrument. His sad, slurring monotone contrasts sharply with the clear, bell-like tones of his youth, and made it very hard to understand what he was singing about. Highway 16? Highway 66? I'm just not sure! Perhaps wisely, Dillon chose to pad his set with covers of other peoples hits, rather than dwell on his past, forgotten glory. Less fortunately, he chose to cover some beautifully written and technically quite demanding songs like UB40's haunting "I'll be your baby tonight.", the subtleties of which seemed to be beyond his grasp. The original, of course, was sung by Robert Palmer, who has a lovely voice - the same cannot, alas, be said of Dillon. His final encore was a much better choice, I must admit. Everyone knows Jimi Hendrix' classic "All Along the Watchtower.", so this was a real crowd pleaser. And Hendrix wasn't much of a singer anyway, so Dillon's mumbling seemed more like hommage to the great man than actual lack of musical ability.

All in all, the band were pretty tight, and would make a good pub rock band if they had a better front man. Someone needs to tell Dillon that you just can't build an entire career on deadpan - it's been passe since whats-his-name did "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

(On a more serious note, Bob Dylan really was less than inspiring until his encore, but Blowin in the Wind and Watchtower were worth staying for. Not worth paying for, perhaps, but then I paid for Ani diFranco, and got my moneys worth. Though complaining that he was wooden is probably less than fair - it is, after all, a trademark.)

sol.
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