BILL CALLAHAN has been putting his disruptive, subversive and seductive music into recorded form since 1990. As SMOG and under his own name he has released at least 18 collections of work, so there is no reason at all to describe what he does. Just look here
Tonight in rain-swept Bristol he performed thirteen songs, with no encore, in a little under two hours. With him were Matt Kinsey on guitar, Jamie Zuverza on Bass and Adam Jones on a small drum kit. Their fluid and sympathetic contribution was a treat to hear.
The full house audience didn't quite rise to the challenge. With many in raptures throughout, some seemed to me to be feeling a bit awkward. There was stamping and shouting for more by the end of the gig, while a few others had been peeling away to check for flooding. There was no encore. It was as if the enthusiasts couldn't quite rouse the doubters or the sleepyheads but we still went home very happy, with more than our money's worth of poetry and music.
The challenge of course is that while Bill Callahan's recordings have become very polished and loving and tender (if sometimes shocking in their lyrical frankness) his performances are more spontaneous, even intemperate. He and the band went from whispering quiet to roaring mayhem, slowing, accelerating, holding a phrase in suspense, deliberating winding a note off-pitch or confusing a chord till it hurt. It's exhilarating to listen to and to watch. There's magic in tiny things, like a sickly smile beaming out from a pungent line of irony or a raised eyebrow flashed in the direction an unplanned surge of electric guitar. Callahan is theatrical in a minimalist way, knowingly feigning innocence as he hopes the audience might "wake up", for example. Maybe he's just a smart arse. Maybe he isn't. But along with a load of others in the room I loved the performance from start to finish.
Most of the songs were extended versions of tracks from the last two albums, the recent "Dream River" and the earlier "Apocalypse". In addition we got the outrageous "Dress Sexy At My Funeral" from 2002's SMOG classic "Dongs of Sevotion" and a terrific cover of PERCY MAYFIELD'S "Please Send Me Someone To Love". This big rueful song featured a wacky solo from each member of the band, introduced with lugubrious preacher-style homilies from your man. The audience were unsure – laugh, shout, cry? The first verse went thus:
"Heaven please send to all mankind / Some understanding and peace of mind. / But if it’s not to ask too much / Please send me someone to love"
The many unarguable highlights included "America!" from the last album and "Seagull" from the current one. Each of those used St George's renowned acoustics to full advantage, with an ambitious dynamic range that would reduce many venues to mush. When they were loud they were very very loud and when they quiet they were holy. At each extreme they were audible in detail and thrilling in scope.
Earlier in Bristol's week some of us had been to see the new, edgier stage version of "West Side Story" and admiration of Callahan's richly-distilled and fully-assimilated Americana were in my mind well before his own "America!", set off. The recognition in his song of the country's greatness in triumph and tragedy sounded angry and true. "Well everyone's allowed a past they don’t care to mention" was his doleful line of retreat. The song roared on. It carried that suggestion of distance between what Callahan sings/says as an artist and what he might believe as a man. That puts a reasonable lump of responsibility onto members of the audience to work out their own lines.
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"Seagull" soared and roared too. That loud pedal was stamped through the stage more than once by Matt Kinsey. But on the flight back out he played such a sweet phrase on his SG that I could have cried. Listen to the album "Apocalypse" to hear the lilt of it without the sonic violence that a concert hall allows. Once heard, always cherished.
ALISDAIR ROBERTS was a very good choice for the support. His poetically ambiguous folk songs gave the audience (should we have needed it) good reason to practice the detailed listening that Bill Callahan was going to demand. We noted the global relevance of "sing in despair of hunger and the belly, and of the soul" and he drew our hearts to the strength of wise mothers in the face of cruel misogyny in "Flower of Northumberland". This song, he told us, was one he had learned from a recording of his father singing at a festival. Throughout ROBERTS' set I particularly enjoyed the dancing phrases of his guitar, played as balance to the austere melodies and lyrics of his ancient songs.
BILL CALLAHAN Set list (compiled from my notes)
1 The Sing (Dream River)
2 Javelin Unlanding? (Dream River)
3 Dress Sexy At My Funeral (Dongs Of Sevotion)
4 Riding For The Feeling (Apocalypse)
5 Ride My Arrow (Dream River)
6 Summer Painter (Dream River)
7 Drover (Apocalypse)
8 Spring (Dream River)
9 One Fine Morning (Apocalypse)
10 America! (Apocalypse)
11 Please Send Me Someone To Love (Percy Mayfield cover)
12 Seagull (Dream River)
13 Winter Road (Dream River)
www.dragcity.com/artists/bill-callahan
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