In its first night as an intimate ticketed music venue, 5 Sawyers passes the audition. Though, to be fair, you could host a line-up featuring Hunter music stars Melody Pool and William Crighton in a shipping container and they’d make it feel like the Ryman.
MELODY POOL + WILLIAM CRIGHTON
5 Sawyers, Darby Street
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Tonight ticket holders are getting bang for their buck with Crighton, fresh from a successful album launch tour, added as the support act after the show sold out.
The tall, bearded singer seems born of a different era, an intriguing anachronism, as if a member of the Kelly gang has wandered in from the distant Australian wilderness. He opens the show on a makeshift stage at the front of the venue, Darby Street an apparition just visible through the curtains draped behind him. The former Riverina resident, who has since settled with his family in Bellbird, is a captivating performer cut from the same cloth as John Schumann, Johnny Cash and Paul Kelly.
Despite the absence of his seven-piece band, Crighton arrests the audience with a deep voice and brooding stare. His timeless folk songs are rich in emotion and Australiana imagery without being overwrought. And there’s a literary deftness to his lyrics. Take, for example, the fan favourite ‘2000 Clicks’, where the narrator sits in a ditch on the side of the road, his vehicle coming “unstuck in the rain”. Crighton’s protagonist sits and reflects on the decisions that have brought him to that serene, contemplative moment. It’s simple and profound. Like the other songs in Crighton’s set, ‘2000 Clicks’ is stripped of its full-band arrangement and loses none of its power.
Crighton treats the crowd to a mix of tracks off his self-titled debut album and also affords a preview of the follow-up, with the songwriter slotting in unreleased tracks. His dark take on Neil Diamond’s ‘Solitary Man’ makes an appearance, as does Neil Young’s ‘Powderfinger’. Of his own compositions we hear ‘Riverina Kid’, ‘Woman Like You’ and ‘Jesus Blues’. A highlight is the wrenching ‘Slowly, Slowly’, which Crighton explains was written with his wife. Fingers crossed it appears on his sophomore release.
A number of songs are given introductory insights, as Crighton explains the meaning behind ‘Smile’, a rumination on mortality, and ‘On My Way’, inspired by the Anzacs’ yearning for their loved ones back home.
He leaves the crowd with the lullaby ‘Night For a Dream’ which shifts into revenge tale ‘Priest’. A fitting end to another impressive performance.
But then it’s time for the lady of the moment. Melody Pool’s second record, Deep Dark Savage Heart, was released this year to universal acclaim. Both her Newcastle and Maitland shows sold out rather quickly, suggesting the Hunter may have finally cottoned on to this homegrown talent.
Pool is not quite in solo mode. The former Kurri Kurri gal, now based in Melbourne, is joined by her string section, cellist Madeleine Becker and violinist Hayley-Jane Ayres. They feature on the latest album, their parts intrinsic to the goosebump-inducing arrangements, imbruing every track they touch with steely melodrama.
Tonight’s show focuses on the new record. Almost every track is played. Those that have followed the songwriter’s live performances since the release of debut record The Hurting Scene three years ago, are already familiar with many of these songs. ‘Richard’, ‘How Long’, ‘Old Enough’, ‘Black Dog’ and ‘Love, She Loves Me’ have featured large in numerous setlists. But this latest tour is the first rodeo for two of the album’s best songs; the title track and ‘Romantic Things’. Both truly sublime pop songs. Pool explains that the latter was an attempt to write a Fleetwood Mac song (an exercise designed to escape writer’s block), stopping short of apologising to the audience for its resemblance to the famous pop band.
In fact, Pool is guilty of numerous caveats throughout the evening. It’s hard to tell whether these lighter moments arrive out of an innate desire to not offend her listeners, self-consciousness or simply illustrate her irreverent sense of humour. Regardless, each footnote injects levity into proceedings, whether it’s the language warning before the raunchy and brilliant ‘Love, She Loves Me’ (“this next one’s a bit sweary”) or the moment attention’s brought to the dark subject matter of songs like ‘Black Dog’ (“You really got yourself into a cheery night”). Where other performers would relish the chance to subject their listeners to a prolonged sullen atmosphere, Pool seems drawn to lightening the mood.
But those small, breezy moments are extinguished by the opening notes of each song, the singer immediately serene and in control.
With no easy way to disappear from the stage at the end of the set, Pool jokingly indicates where her encore may have hypothetically taken place. A loud cheer from the audience suggests an encore would have indeed been demanded.
The songwriter plays the evening’s only track from previous record, The Hurting Scene, the wrenching ‘Henry’. Then Pool’s assured performance ends with a stark cover of her friend Ella Hooper’s track ‘Everything Was a Sign’. It’s a raw treatment of the yearning, dream-like original, and it’s little surprise that Pool makes it her own.
PHOTO: Ryan Callaghan
