大象传媒

Is that it? I mean seriously, is that it? The punter forks out a decent wodge of cash for this gig, and in return gets 55 minutes including a walk off stage before a one song encore. 55 minutes is what you get from someone 1-2 albums in, a new act working up, not what you expect from Mark Lanegan, a man with 20-something years in the business and a personal discography as long as your arm, let alone his various collaborations. Granted, we get a decent run through his career, hitting most of his solo albums (tracks from 'Bubblegum', 'Field Songs', 'Whiskey For The Holy Ghost' and 'The Winding Sheet' all appear), and his voice is as entrancing as ever, still worthy of all the spirit and stone metaphors that are thrown about, but it leaves a bitter taste. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, but when Lanegan walks off after about 50 minutes, the first thought that comes to mind is "a show of two halves, he's off for a quick drink and a smoke and then we'll probably get another 25 minutes and if we're lucky an encore after that". Certainly the mountain of untouched water bottles and towels left behind him implies this.

And it was an evening that started so promisingly, Duke Garwood essentially being a baby-Lanegan, with a delicate distressed blues on acoustic guitar and a slow solemn gravel voice, the traits that we associate with the headliner. He's even about as interactive with the audience as Lanegan, not rude, but just business-like. The message is he's a musician, and not an entertainer, an appetiser before the entree.

Appetites whetted, Lanegan almost ghosts onto the stage, an impressive feat for a physically imposing man. Our focus is even more on this most apparently unwilling of front-men as he is stripped of the array of electric and percussive accompaniment. 'When Your Number Isn't Up' opens, the sparse backing and pin-drop audience adding to the majesty of his voice, it's showing a smoothness often unnoticeable among the usual electric noise. Few can genuinely merit or indeed cope with this treatment, requiring as it does a very special voice to hold our undivided attention for a prolonged period, and that may be the problem. Having grown in popularity and legendary status with time, the audience will have come hoping for a set laden with their own personal Lanegan favourites, and when these don't appear, the natives grow restless. Even an unprecedented display of between song speaking (albeit only to introduce his onstage companion guitarist) does little to abate the shuffling of feet, rattle of glasses and growing hum of conversation. And it may be this that has annoyed our star enough to seemingly cut it short. There's a few off-mic chats which we can only conclude can be paraphrased as "stuff it, it's over."

We're used to bluesmen with great voices and huge back catalogues involving multiple collaborators in this city. We're also used to them being a bit moody. It doesn't mean we like it though.

William Johnston

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