| INFO | M WARD NORFOLK AND WESTERN BIDGIE REEF WITH NO GAS 21 SOUTH STREET ARTS CENTRE READING SAT 4 JUNE 2005 |
Starting off the night were Reading stalwarts Bidgie Reef Without The Gas: Pete Brookes and Roger Winslet in black tie, looking like the unlikeliest piece of fun since Richard Stilgoe packed his piano away. But they are fun – Roger’s crooning and Pete’s banging away at the piano make it a delight as they wend their way through songs detailing various slightly awkward and unusual characters. What makes the two-man Bidgie Reef experience superior to the full band is that in a situation like this you can hear all of the words, of which there tend to be quite a lot. Of course on other occasions when the full band play you still get to indulge in the thrill of watching the most exciting spectacles in rock and roll as they slowly slip further and further down Pete’s nose… are they about to fall off? Not yet, but one day. After the Reef we are treated to a second support act, this time a pair called Norfolk And Western (named after a railway line) all the way from Oregon. The songs are very pleasant, not thrillingly original perhaps, but they sweep you up and carry you along with them. Adam Selzer’s (guitar and vocals) voice is naggingly familiar, perhaps it’s an Oregon accent, but it seems reminiscent of singers such as Vic Chesnutt and other slow, mournful indie artistes. This isn’t a bad thing, as such, since it fits so snugly into the music that they’re playing. The most mesmerising thing (even more so than Pete’s yellow glasses) about this band, and indeed about the whole night, is Norfolk and Western’s drummer, Rachel Blumberg (who also doubled on ukulele, piano and glockenspiel). And what is so mesmerising is the concentration that she is putting into her work. The drum parts are strict and there is a notable absence of extravagant fills and impromptu invention and each tom, cymbal and snare seems to be struck exactly right. And all the time she’s watching the kit, or if not she’s watching Adam. And frowning with concentration – but it’s quite clear that she knows what she’s doing, so maybe it’s simply a slightly nervous dedication. Once the headline artiste mounts the stage, Mr. M Ward himself, it becomes apparent that his backing band is Norfolk And Western (though with Adam playing bass) plus a guitarist (Zak Riles). He himself mounts the piano stool and remains firmly in place for the first few numbers. There are various comparisons I have read about this man in the press prior to the gig and we’ll quickly rattle through a few of them now. Yes, there is a bit of the Tom Waits about him, but there are a whole lot of other impressions that rush up at the same time – at times he has the plaintive moan of Billie Holiday about him, at other times the scowl of Nick Cave. On the first song he sings he teeters somewhere between Waits and Dylan singing a blues written by Graceland-era Paul Simon (and friends) and it sounds great. But within a few songs these comparisons, this desire to relate what you’re seeing to something that’s gone before, sinks away and M. Ward quite firmly shows he’s his own man. As he reduces the players on stage down to just himself for a half dozen songs he shows that a) solo acoustic guitar isn’t always quiet, is certainly not dull and b) that even when playing quietly, singing ‘sensitive’ songs there are people who pay to go to pop concerts in order to ignore the stage and have a conversation. The world is strange. During this solo section he reinvented David Bowie’s Let’s Dance as a melancholy blues, which had to be one of the highlights of a show that had many. Finishing off with the full band M. Ward showed that it’s very, very cool to be yourself and made Scott Joplin’s ragtime standard ‘The Entertainer’ almost bearable (following, as it did, a piece from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier) – and it must take a brave man to attempt something as stupid as that. A damn fine show. | 
