1997

Paul Kelly

with Monique Brumby

Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

A lot has happened since Paul Kelly played at Womad in February. For a start he has become a household word. When his Greatest Hits collection, Songs From the South (Mushroom/Sony) hit the stores in June, it seemed like everybody had to have one, or even two. Perched in the top five of the album charts week after week, the CD has gone gold, platinum, double platinum, cadmium. Everywhere on the Periodic Table of Elements but lead. Nearly a hundred thousand copies sold in less than two months. Paul Kelly has temporarily become a force of nature.

So it is no surprise that his sell-out concert at Her Majesty’s has such a buzz about it. He is from here, isn’t he ? Didn’t he wrote that song about how Adelaide sucks ? Well, anyway- that song about how you have to leave home to become who you are. And now when he comes back- to Writers’ Week, to a full house at the Festival Theatre, as a headliner at Womadelaide, he is dipping his hat to the old home town and enjoying being feted in return.

Tasmanian singer/songwriter Monique Brumby opens the show with a slew of songs from her debut Thylacine CD. Accompanying herself on guitar, with twelve string back-up, Brumby sings One Day, Fool for You , The Change in Me and others. She sounds close to her influences- Rickie Lee Jones, Suzanne Vega, Sinead. That’s no crime, these are early days and we will be hearing  more from Monique Brumby.

When Paul Kelly takes the stage we are reminded how astutely he constructs his performances. He is doing the rounds with his Greatest- so just to keep us guessing he opens with a new song,  guitar only. It’s called Little Kings, a tilt at petty tyrants and mean spirits. He makes his point but doesn’t dwell on it. We are still ruminating on it when he lobs into the many verses and occasionally lumpy end-rhymes of Bradman. In fugue form as the band assembles- Steve Hadley on upright bass, Bruce Haymes on keyboards, Peter Luscombe, drums, on guitar, Shane O’Mara.

Winter Coat gets a new styling, a lyrical slow waltz treatment with lovely fills from Haymes and a clear, keening vocal from Kelly. Deeper Water follows and then- as O’Mara hits that wah wah pedal- Dumb Things. I melted wax to fix my wings. I’ve done all the dumb things. The crowd is starting to sway with  recognition. Songs remembered from parties, listened to late at night, on long car trips to wherever. Before Too Long, When I First Met Your Ma, and with heavy garnishes of harmonica, Love Never Runs on Time.

In this set there are new songs and an old Earl Brown cover that has been getting steady radio time, It Started With a Kiss. A high point is Melting, with dreamy back-up vocals from Monique Brumby and thrummy bass from Hadley. O’Mara reaches for the sustain and his guitar gently weeps and melts, duetting with Haymes’ swirling Hammond sound in a spacey version of country style psychedelics. It’s a fine new song and one destined to stay in the repertoire.

Which may not happen for Tease Me, a bit of bump and grind r’n’b, performed, believe it or not, complete with exotic dancer. In gentler vein there is that much-performed Kelly standard- confession of a libertine, tale of ordinary madness, Careless. Tricked up with Haymes’ Let it Be intro, it is a song now toppling into parody, it needs a rest. Unlike To Her Door and that edgy venture behind closed doors, Sweet Guy.

A fluent, expansive reading of Gravy demonstrates again what a great band Kelly has assembled and how that in turn gives momentum to his composition. Look So Fine, Feel So Low– the old Gossip track reminds us also of the angst-ridden bravado that made those early songs so true to life. It is a good place to end the set, and a rest before those ample encores that are the guarantee of a Kelly concert.

Kelly’s solo, From Little Things Big Things Grow, is a popular choice. Anthem to a former time it is now even more apposite, since the circle, it turns out, is not at all unbroken and we have a future ahead just  re-inventing  wheels. Beating of Your Heart, another new song, is a revelation as the band, in splendid accord, plays electric music for the mind and body. More Hits pile up – Summer Rain, My Love and Pouring Petrol on a Burning Man. But it is the songwriter’s song about songs which has the last say. Words and Music, a lovely reverie and yet another Kelly epiphany.

So far this has been Paul Kelly’s year and it is well deserved. Best of all, the CD sales will surely secure an audience for new work due out early next year. And the glimpses we have so far suggest that, in no time at all, Greatest Hits Volume Two will be going helium.

The Adelaide Review, No.167, August, 1997, p.32-3.