Jeff Martin @ FriendsRestaurant, Perth (04/04/08)

Tue 8th Apr, 2008 in Gig Reviews

Friends Restaurant at the Hyatt might have seemed like an odd place for Jeff Martin to play a show, but intimacy seems to suit Martin (of The Tea Party fame) just as well as the open festival stage.

Speaking before the show, Martin admitted to being more than a little nervous, because the audience was mostly close family and friends. No, really, the audience was seated so close they could have reached out and slapped him if he didn’t behave. His nerves were evident as he opened with Silence, but after getting a laugh from the audience, telling them they could make as much noise as they liked, he relaxed into it and began to enjoy himself.

Predominantly playing a 12-string acoustic guitar, he also played a sitar with a bow, and a hurdy-gurdy, to create a mesmerising sound that defies genre-ification. Spiritually, a Raga is a deep attachment which results in the spontaneous and intense absorption in the object of affection. Musically, a raga is an improvisational style that follows ascending and descending patterns which relate specifically to moods or seasons, and with which, it seems, Martin can inspire the same intensity of spiritual absorption in his audience. Raga was always meant to be rock, wasn’t it?

Dedicating a wrenching cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah to his mother-in-law and I Love You to his wife, Martin wrapped his honesty and passion around everyone in the room. He carried them with him as he described the journey, “To become the artist I hear in my head.”

Once he had everyone’s undivided attention (including the cook, who rushed out of the kitchen excitedly, only to be called back in to attend a drama requiring a cook’s presence), Martin treated us to a selection of his solo work and Tea Party classics. These included Fire In The Head, Sun Going Down and In This Time, woven into inspired medleys incorporating portions of other-songs-within-other-songs-within his own beautifully written lyrics. Artists homaged included Sinead O Connor, Stephen Stills, Johnny Cash, Jane’s Addiction and, of course, Jimmy Page.

Friends Restaurant has the kind of acoustics sound technicians would sell their mothers for. The reason, confided the genial and hospitable owner Clyde Bevan, are the floor to ceiling wine racks that dominate the venue. Add the skills of the sound tech, and not a sound was heard that Martin didn’t intend to make. Perhaps we might see bands playing gigs in wine cellars in the future.

He leaves Perth this week for the final leg of his tour. After some shows in Canada, Martin will be returning to his home in Ireland to finish off his next album, tentatively entitled The Line in the Sand, as well as some sound production work for his new band Armada.