Joe Henry - Meltdown Festival, London
Went with my buddy Ross to the SouthBank Centre to see Joe Henry and his 3-piece band perform as part of the Richard Thompson curated Meltdown Festival. What an absolutely fantastic show - amazing sound, top-flight performances, and a fairly good selection of material considering he notoriously doesn't perform any material from his more country-orientated material, thus excluding anything pre-1996's 'Trampoline'.
A big change from the last time I saw Joe Henry play was he released a new album 'Blood From Stars' last year. Tonights show drew very heavily from that record - making up the bulk of the mainset and 8 of the first 10 songs played.
It's clearly material Joe's band know best, so they excelled on opened "Bellwether" and "The Man I Keep Hid" later in the set. Drummer Jay Bellerose was spell-binding to watch perform at such close quarters, but it was the baby-faced tenor saxphone player Levon Henry, who played on about half the set, that seemed to assert the most influence on the songs. Joe Henry mostly played acoustic guitar, although he did switch to grand piano for a few songs - although he warned the audience it wasn't his forte ("you know how they say most people while they're driving shouldn't text? Well for me playing the piano is like scaling a fish while I'm driving. Hard to do..... but I'm just so hungry").
For me, the show really took flight towards the end of the main set - with a mesmerizing run of songs from "The Man I Keep Hid" into "Flag", a great version of his Madonna co-write "Stop" (which she recorded as "Don't Tell Me"), a brilliant "Trampoline", before closing with "Our Song" and "Civilians" both from his second-to-last album 'Civilians'.
Unfortunately the SouthBank Centre has very strict curfews - so after a great main set there was only time left the band time to return for a sole encore, a medley of "Edgar Begen" into the old standard "I've Got You Under My Skin".
Full setlist:
1. Bellwether
2. Channel
3. Progress of Love (Dark Ground)
4. This Is My Favorite Cage
5. Sold
6. All Blues Hail Mary
7. Lighthouse
8. Truce
9. Suit On A Frame
10. The Man I Keep Hid
11. Flag
12. Stop
13. Trampoline
14. Our Song
15. Civilians
16. Edgar Bergen / I've Got You Under My Skin
A big change from the last time I saw Joe Henry play was he released a new album 'Blood From Stars' last year. Tonights show drew very heavily from that record - making up the bulk of the mainset and 8 of the first 10 songs played.
It's clearly material Joe's band know best, so they excelled on opened "Bellwether" and "The Man I Keep Hid" later in the set. Drummer Jay Bellerose was spell-binding to watch perform at such close quarters, but it was the baby-faced tenor saxphone player Levon Henry, who played on about half the set, that seemed to assert the most influence on the songs. Joe Henry mostly played acoustic guitar, although he did switch to grand piano for a few songs - although he warned the audience it wasn't his forte ("you know how they say most people while they're driving shouldn't text? Well for me playing the piano is like scaling a fish while I'm driving. Hard to do..... but I'm just so hungry").For me, the show really took flight towards the end of the main set - with a mesmerizing run of songs from "The Man I Keep Hid" into "Flag", a great version of his Madonna co-write "Stop" (which she recorded as "Don't Tell Me"), a brilliant "Trampoline", before closing with "Our Song" and "Civilians" both from his second-to-last album 'Civilians'.
Unfortunately the SouthBank Centre has very strict curfews - so after a great main set there was only time left the band time to return for a sole encore, a medley of "Edgar Begen" into the old standard "I've Got You Under My Skin".
Full setlist:
1. Bellwether
2. Channel
3. Progress of Love (Dark Ground)
4. This Is My Favorite Cage
5. Sold
6. All Blues Hail Mary
7. Lighthouse
8. Truce
9. Suit On A Frame
10. The Man I Keep Hid
11. Flag
12. Stop
13. Trampoline
14. Our Song
15. Civilians
16. Edgar Bergen / I've Got You Under My Skin
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