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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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WILLY
MASON
ULU, London - Friday April
22nd, 2005 - by Nick Morgan |
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Hot
news music lovers! Singer songwriters are back in
fashion. – and it’s big business. Over
the past few weeks Polydor have thrown a small fortune
in the direction of their PR machine on behalf of
Rufus Wainwright (son of his famous dad Loudon III)
and his new album Want Two. Tom Vek has been burning
Island’s bucks to promote his homemade debut
We Have Sound. |
On
a more modest scale Josh Rouse released the quite
brilliant Nashville (as Serge would say, “please
buy his CD”), and last year critics raved
when little Willy
Mason came out with Where The Humans
Eat. Quickly labelled as the new Bob Dylan in the
British press (a sort of immediate kiss of death
I would have thought) Mason found his way across
here in February and it seems as though he’s
been here ever since, touring the country, playing
in well chosen small venues, and winning over the
hearts of hoards of fans, and opening the sticky
chequebooks of anxious admires in the A&R side
of things all pushing to sign him up (his album
was released under licence to Virgin and he currently
has no publishing deal).
In fact it turns out that Willy might have been
here a tad too long, as by the time we managed to
see him he was clearly suffering from tour fatigue
in a big way, and as this was (allegedly) the last
gig of his tour (“I’m going away for
a long long time and if I ever come back you won’t
recognise me”) he was also somewhat de-mob
happy. Toying with a bottle of Jack Daniels on stage
has become a trademark of his UK tour, but Willy
had clearly been toying at the bar pretty seriously
before coming on stage, and though he passed the
half-empty whiskey bottle to the crowd early in
the set, his admirers provided him with a flow of
beverages through the night. It didn’t seem
to interfere with his playing too much (at least
not until the end), and his voice was more adenoidal
than slurred. But it certainly fired him up when
it came to his drummer, younger brother Sam Mason... |
| Now
Sam was dressed in a monkey suit – no doubt
deep in meaning and linked to the chained monkey
pictured on the inside of the CD cover, from a painting
by Roelandt Savery (more famous for painting Dodos).
So when he appeared on stage his brother subjected
him to a tirade of taunts, which continued throughout
the evening. Now maybe these were meant to be symbolic
too, but I rather suspect that the impromptu brawl
(shades of Ray and Dave Davies – they were
knocking blocks off each other) that broke out amongst
the warring siblings carried a rather different
meaning, and by the way the Mason’s manager
rushed to the stage to break it up was certainly
not planned. |
|
 Sam
Mason
(in his monkey suit) |
| Shame
really. For all the alcohol Mason (Willy) performed
well. He had an easy rapport with the audience (not
difficult to tell why – they were the same
age, looked the same and were just as pissed) who
clearly identify closely with many of his songs
– though truth to tell they have a far greater
universality than the teenager to man angst stuff
would suggest. |
 Willy
Mason's album
'Where the humans eat' |
|
The
audience demanded – and got - the delightful
contents of the album, with a few additional songs
– one written by his mother and father, ‘Carry
him down’, and a very boyscoutesque version
of ‘Freight Train’ (he was losing it
a bit by then). And if you haven’t heard any
of this stuff you should – Mason is a remarkable
talent – songs like ‘Where the humans
eat’, ‘All you can do’, ‘Oxygen’,
and ‘Gotta keep movin’ could grace any
‘100 best songs’ list. But what was
really outstanding was the contribution made by
brother Sam. His skiffle snare drum style gives
the album a real hobo groove, and he delivered it
perfectly on stage – despite the tiresome
filial abuse. And of course I can’t help thinking
that if the big boys get hold of Willy and put him
in a studio with a big production budget it could
be this sound that’s one of the first things
to go. |
|
But at least he showed some contrition. “Ok,
I know I’ve been a fucking twat. I’m
pissed and I’ve gone too far”. However
it didn’t stop him from leaving with a flourish.
“Hold them up” he urged his admires
– “Fuck, man, I never thought I’d
be able to do this in folk music” - and then
leapt off the stage and surfed through a sea of
hands and waves of beer to the back of the hall,
where he ended the evening surrounded by fans and
loads of booze, happily chatting the night away.
Tired, emotional (“This fame thing is fucking
crap man”), maybe just a bit mixed up? Who
knows? But do come back Willy; cut back on the JD,
and be nice to your brother. - Nick Morgan (concert
photos by Kate) |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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