Now Selling:
Biff Merchants - Harold
Biff Merchants - Harold
Gig Guide
Thursday September 9th
[View gig guide...]
· Refuel: Tommy Ill Album Release Tour
· Di Lusso: DJ Marze
· Pequeno: Houseproud
· Robbie Burns Pub: Calder Prescott Jazz Quartet
· Sammy's Entertainment Venue: The Blackseeds
· Chicks Hotel: PINE with support from Bill Morris
· Urban Factory: The Threads, Bill Morris and the Barflies, The Tennents
[View gig guide...]
Latest Reviews
Active Artists
Hot Topics
Reviews
Don McGlashan and John Egenes at St. Martins Hall, 1/5/10
20 May, 2010Page 1
comments
[start discussion]
[ next page >> ]
John Egenes, our resident cowboy, entertained us first with a song about women who like to dance called “Women in Love” with a timely bit of advice for all the gentlemen in the audience, “Men, women don't care if you can dance or not, just if you will”. He is a practitioner who appears well at ease with his craft, like he hit the right mix years ago and now just dutifully plays the stuff he knows works.
Normally the harsh tones of an American accent can be sore on the ears, yet the lazy drawl of Mr Egenes isn’t, probably because it works with his music.It was Don McGlashan’s turn next. Of course, when you are doing a solo tour and some or most of your major hits have been as part of a band, you have to improvise during these songs, hence he whistled the guitar solo at the start of Dominion Road. It worked though for some strange reason, probably due to the fact that he wrote the song and with just a semi-acoustic guitar you can get to the heart it . People will still know what you are singing and will sing along.
Something that is unique amongst Kiwis (and McGlashan was a brilliant example of this) was that air of self-deprecatory banter and there was no shortage of it that night. When the Listener some time last year did a special on humour, that self-deprecation was found to be an essential trait of Kiwidom and I am inclined to agree. It is part of the Kiwi psyche, as important as ingenuity, the fact that we prefer to be understated and humble and just do things. An example of this banter was on the song “Nature”, the Fourmyula hit that McGlashan covered as part of the Mutton Birds. I find the banter between songs enjoyable sometimes just as much as the music itself as it is random, off the cuff ramblings, spur of the moment and got the audience to do the “doodoodoos” and “deedeedees” and “nature enter me”, really getting the audience onside with a song that they all know.
McGlashan liked using Loop/delay pedals right throughout the whole set, producing a sound that had a weight far beyond the ordinary capability of a soloist, especially on the song, “Straight to Your Head.”
He also utilised a euphonium, an instrument found stereotypically in brass bands and not necessarily solo, and yet McGlashan is no stranger to this, having used it on some of his earlier instrumental work and while he was part of The Mutton Birds.
Yet it gave his sound a warm, rich quality that only brass instruments can really achieve. And then when he looped euphonium as well, it just soared out across the hall, sounding as if a euphonium quartet was on the stage. [ next page >> ]
