Concert Review – Joe Henry

Attending a Joe Henry show is like walking down a series of dark alleys late at night. Each song seems to promise you a safe passage to a more comfortable place but each time you are drawn down that path you find yourself feeling a little more uneasy and a little further from home.

Henry is a seductive songwriter – he’s a beat poet somehow trapped in the guise of a singer-songwriter. He’s a cross between Tom Waits and Paul Kelly with a little bit of Grant Lee Phillips thrown in.

Perhaps it is because he has two first names and both  are of the everyman variety but Henry has a unassuming persona, a quiet demeanour and a workmanlike approach to his performance and yet beneath this almost humble façade lies a performer that is capable of slicing you to the core with the subtlety of a paper cut.

It partly comes down to simply the tone of his voice. He is just a wonderful singer whose voice draws you into the songs and then breaks your heart in the next breath.

Rarely have I observed a Melbourne pub audience as attentive and as silent during the songs as this one. Perhaps once before  – in the eighties at the Prince Patrick when Jeff Buckley made his Melbourne debut, but that was different. That was a younger crowd that was simply awestruck – tonight it was a collection of devotees who were more deeply respectful than anything else.

Last time Joe Henry played in Melbourne it was at the still lamented Continental Café – a room where respectful audiences where the norm not the exception. I was reminded tonight by someone with a better memory than I of a consensus that was reached that Henry was going to be a big star.

That didn’t really happen but as it turns out Joe Henry has become something better than that. His work continues to improve and expand and it was telling that some of the highlights from tonights show where from his most recent album Civilians.

Amongst these were the shows closer Civil War and You Cant Fail Me Now but to me the pinnacle of the evening came with the Our Song – a song that deserves a much better, more distinctive and more evocative title. Once you know the song the title makes sense but the songs content deserves to be heard far and wide and this sometimes means wrapping it in the most attention grabbing gift wrap. This song is the American companion to Kelly’s Bradman.

Special mention must be made of upright bass player David Piltch whose contributions were both utterly tasteful and virtuosic. In a beautifully mixed crystalline sound the subtlety of his contributions was immeasurable.

A Mose Allison and a Loudon Wainright III co-write were included as well as a song written by Henry with his sister-in-law Madonna Ciccone about which he quipped “I recorded it as a tango, she recorded it as a hit”.

Henry chooses not to explain too much about this songs which is fine with me but he offers some wry remarks to the audience. When someone mentions the new president he comments “It’s not like one man can change the world….but then you look at the last eights years and think ‘damn’!” or something closer to that.

Let’s hope that we see Joe Henry return to Australia sometime in the current presidential term. He too may not change the world but his songs and performances certainly cast an ever lengthening shadow.