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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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JIM WHITE The Luminaire, Kilburn, London,
October 19th 2007 |
| First
of all I should apologise, particularly to the man
in the red shirt. I was ducking and diving through
the crowd with a couple of glasses of beer when
much to my surprise I found myself almost at the
front of the audience just right of centre - and
there’s no way back. Ok for the diminutive
Photographer, but not so good for your six foot
tall reviewer. Not before too long the overwrought
red-shirt (a North American as it happened) indicated
rightly that he thought my behaviour a little inconsiderate.
Whilst trying to explain my predicament and sooth
his agitation I stepped down to the first of two
steps that led to the stage front. There I fell
foul of the farting and foul-smelling Sapphic ogres,
who had formed an unlikely cordon at the front,
more intimidating than the famous line of Hell’s
Angels at Altamont back in ’69. I’d
noticed them at the door, each one menacingly chewing
at a jar of pickled onions, daring the punters to
make eye-contact. |
| Abused
and thwarted I was back in front of red-shirt, but
managed to move slightly to the left to give him
a line of sight (ironically the space was immediately
filled by another six-footer who spent the whole
night taking pictures, which must have pissed him
off even more). Anyway, I adopted an exaggerated
Shakespearian stoop (think Marty Feldman as Richard
III) and tried to spend the rest of the night (in
between using the smelling salts that were being
generously passed around to the needy) pretending
not to be there. |
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| Strangely,
despite numerous subsequent applications of ibuprofen-rich
analgesics my neck is still in agony. Such is the
degree that I’m prepared to suffer for my
art. |
| We’re
in Kilburn at the
Luminaire. Opened about two-and-a-half years
ago above McGoverns Bar in the High Road, it has
quickly become one of the most admired venues in
London, scooping numerous awards along the way.
It’s worth while looking at how and why they
run this independent venue the way they do, because
it is very different. And when they say this –
“We thought that, instead of acting aloof
and moody when people arrived for a gig, we welcomed
them and asked how they were and maybe had a bit
of a conversation and a laugh, they'd remember that
and tell their friends” - I can report that
it’s absolutely true – staff at the
venue were also remarkably helpful and amusing when
we had to ‘phone to check out a few things,
and the bar staff were cool, charming, relaxed and
astonishingly polite. It’s quite a place –
and I can’t hold the venue responsible for
that slight unpleasantness at the front of the stage. |
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Oh
yes – and it’s Whiskyfun favourite Jim
White, last seen hanging out with Johnny
Dowd and Hellwood. Much apparently, has changed
since then. Jim’s turned 50 (he almost shares
a birthday with the Photographer) and found some
sort of peace within himself. He’s also got
a second child (a picture of daughter No 1 still
adorns his Telecaster). And critics reviewing his
rightly well-received new album, Transnormal Skiperoo,
have all bemoaned the fact that Jim appears to be,
not to put too fine a point on it, happy. |
| Jim
White |
|
Well it’s a happy album indeed that has a
mentally ill boy walking into the “golden
sun of the headlight of an oncoming train”
(from the powerful ‘Take me away’, which
we first heard at the Bush Hall in 2004). And although
Jim tells us that now he’s 50 he hasn’t
got time to be maudlin anymore, I think the following
comment is more revealing: “The first album
[Wrong Eyed Jesus] had a lot of aching on it, and
a lot of hunger for redemption. This album, though…
I feel more at home, and I feel like I belong and
have a purpose here”. So it is perhaps contentment
– not always the same as happiness. And that
apparently is Transnormal Skiperoo: “Transnormal
Skiperoo is a name I invented to describe a strange
new feeling I've been experiencing after years of
feeling lost and alone and cursed. Now, when everything
around me begins to shine, when I find myself dancing
around in my back yard for no particular reason
other than it feels good to be alive, when I get
this deep sense of gratitude that I don't need drugs
or God or doomed romance to fuel myself through
the gauntlet of a normal day, I call that feeling
Transnormal Skiperoo”. |
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Patrick
Hargon's customised Telecaster |
| Jim
White gigs are a unique experience – the audience
is privileged to be taken into Jim’s intimate
world through his wonderfully constructed songs
(both lyrically and musically) and anecdotes. On
the music front Jim’s aided and abetted by
the excellent Patrick
Hargon on a customised Telecaster (“I
play it real hard--so hard it will make your teeth
hurt, like you bit on a spoon too hard”) a
bass player, and somewhere amongst the wires and
boxes “the Japanese drummer who doesn’t
drink”. |
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The
Japanese drummer > |
 |
He
talks himself well past the curfew, telling us
not just about Jesus (how many times does He get
a mention during the night?), but about growing
up in the Deep South, about life as a taxi-driver
in New York, playing college fraternity gigs in
Texas, and about his family. He’s very dry,
very funny, occasionally scabrous (I’m not
going to print those) and sometimes very moving.
If you want to know what he played then take a
look at the set list. |
| It’s
another fantastically performed set from Mr White
and his colleagues. We’re very lucky to have
him here, and I only hope they treat him well at
home (indeed if he were a Brit he would have already
been given ‘National Treasure’ status
several times over). I wouldn’t be anywhere
else – and not even the most malodorous bowels
could make me move. - Nick Morgan (photographs
by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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