Grant Lee Phillips - Bush Hall, London

A great, but long-awaited- show from Grant Lee Phillips at The Bush Hall. I actually purchased these tickets back when his album ‘Little Moon’ was just-released, but thanks to that pesky Icelandic volcano the original show in April was rescheduled to tonight.

On the plus side, it meant I got to take my buddy Justin along to see his first live music show in London, and I reckon it was a pretty good one.

I’d been checking out reviews on the web for other shows on this European tour and they’d all been solo acoustic, so I was surprised tonight to find Grant Lee accompanied by a young drummer and bass player, who he announced early in the show were making his debut performance together.

Although ‘Little Moon’ has been out sometime by now, I still love the record so it was great to see so much material drawn from that release, including the opener “Good Morning Happiness” (one of Milo’s favorites) followed by “Strangest Thing” (one of my favorites).

It was good to see Grant Lee in full-band mode, hopefully a pre-cursor to the Grant Lee Buffalo reunion shows scheduled for Jan 2011.

One minor quibble with the show was the way the set was structured seemed a little schizophrenic – opening with a bunch of material from his solo albums, before switching mid-set into a whole bunch of older Grant Lee Buffalo songs. Still, minor criticism aside, it was fantastic to hear the stripped-back band tackle old favorites like “Honey Don’t Think”, “Mighty Joe Moon” and “Mockingbirds”.

Another clear highlight was the main set closing “Raise the Spirit” from 2007’s ‘Strangelet’ which has now turned into a T-Rex-esque stomper.

Grant-Lee then returned solo to start the encore with a fantastic run-through Grant Lee Buffalo’s “The Hook” and “Fuzzy” before the rhythm section returned to give us “One Morning” from ‘Little Moon’ and “We All Get A Taste” from 2001’s ‘Mobilize’.

The crowd seemed to be enjoying the show, and despite concerns around the curfew managed to tease a second encore out, with a great run through Grant Lee Buffalo’s “Lone Start Song” to close things.

Full setlist:
Good Morning Happiness
Strangest thing
Little Moon
See America
Ain't the same old cold war
Killing a dead man
Nightbirds
Honey Don't Think
Mighty joe moon
Mockingbirds
Buried treasure
Seal it with a kiss
Raise the spirit

The Hook (solo)
Fuzzy (solo)
One Morning
We all Get a Taste

Lone Star Song