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HEAVEN, EARTH AND PARRAMATTA: GILLIAN WELCH'S ROAD TO WIND BACK WEDNESDAY


In a week we in Australia (or at least on the east coast; ok, Sydney and Melbourne) finally get the return of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who seemingly operate on long, long (but maybe hastening) lead times – first tour here in 2004; second tour here in 2016; fourth tour here in 2032??? – that do nothing to diminish the fervour around each album release or tour.


Wind Back Wednesday takes us back to that first tour – when the entwined duo were still operating under the single name – and a moment of reverence in a setting which was both perfect and lacked a certain, well, respect, but did nothing to diminish the fervour of our reaction.


It’s possible the 2016 shows, where they performed (together, of course) separate gigs as Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings Machine, were better shows – and in my review of that I got to say a few more words than this over-too-soon review. But nothing ever hits like the first time.


See you at the Opera House next week?

                          ______________________________


 

GILLIAN WELCH

Roxy, Parramatta, November 5, 2004

 

THIS ONE-TIME PINK-WALLED picture palace, now with a thumping doof doof nightclub downstairs (the noise ungraciously bleeding up through the ceiling later) and an outdoor DJ-with-percussionist, has an upstairs room with the mixed ambience of the country hall and the deco theatre.


It seems tailor made for Gillian Welch, and her partner David Rawlings, whose music is both rustic and artistic, plainspoken and beautifully expressed.


Above the high stage and first rows of plastic seats in an arc, behind which rose the old cinema seats, are the restored grand ceiling lights and slightly baroque plaster filigrees which remind of days when straitened circumstances did not have to mean austere or utilitarian. And around us are perfect acoustics.


Perfect anyway for two voices and two acoustic guitars, mic-ed up rather than played through amplifiers.



It is in this environment that we found ourselves enjoying one of the most sublime musical evenings of this or any recent year, filled with the sounds of the Appalachians and the plains that were informed by both a respectful understanding of the music roots and a subtle but persistent drip of an attitude as much rock’n’roll as bluegrass.


Some of that can be seen in Rawlings often astonishing guitar work, on an instrument which looked like a lovingly maintained but clearly weathered between-the-wars veteran. Though he is an unflashy player, Rawlings’ playing was inventive and energetic, constantly moving but never intruding beyond its role as the carriage and engine for these songs, as in the passionate gospel of Rock Of Ages where you could almost see the dirt floor church


Some of it was found in a gorgeous version of Radiohead’s Black Star which could easily have been mistaken for a Doc Watson tune or the references to Steve Miller’s Quicksilver Girl in My First Lover. And some of it too could be seen in the bounciness on stage where this understatedly attractive couple lightly bantered with the audience and tweaked a catalogue which, on record at least, leans more towards the sparsely beautiful but dark, but here found regular sprightliness.


However, what we will remember most from this night is the way the voices of Welch and Rawlings seemed to merge, not into one voice but (as we saw so impressively in both Miss Ohio and I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll) something new again and so richly rewarding.


It was church and nursery, field and fireside, heaven and earth.


 

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SEE MORE

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings play:

Sydney Opera House – January 23-25

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne – January 28-31 and February 2

 

Yorumlar


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