It’s fair to say Fremantle loves Ash Grunwald. One quick stroll down the cappuccino strip and it’s easy to see how Grunwald’s earthy delta blues concurs with the easygoing-good-vibe ethos of the city, something reflected by the large turn out for his Friday show at Fly By Night. The beaded and dread locked crowd showed no hang ups. They didn’t need chairs. They opted to sit cross-legged on the floor in an arch around the stage, imposing a strangely beautiful tent festival vibe onto the usually bustling venue.
Supporting artist Saritah welcomed the group with a blessing and started her set off with the appropriately tone-setting Greet the Sun. Her blues-reggae-jazz fusion was well received by the audience, prompting the first hippy dancer of the night to get far out. Her soaring voice and cool understated slap chords were let down only by her awkward lyrics. While obviously well intentioned, Saritah’s hyper-politically charged beat-poet style lyrics at times came across clunky and overly preachy. This was exacerbated by a few songs that featured some spoken word verses and stomp-box backed rapping. In fairness the overly loud portion of the crowd near the bar didn’t help, proving distracting to both Saritah and those trying to listen. Overall, however, the unbacked Saritah did well to establish the natural warm-fuzzy atmosphere that would carry on throughout the evening and had some real flashes of brilliance with more subtle numbers Pray and Isolated.
Typically down to earth, Ash Grunwald walked unannounced onto the stage as if walking into his own kitchen to find a crowd of around three hundred people next to his fridge. Resonator in hand, Grunwald burst straight into his stompy signature delta blues with Give Something Away. In between songs, Grunwald playfully indulged the crowd with banter. He warned those who unrelentingly demanded he play faster that he was easily swayed by any kind of encouragement, something he proved at the end of nearly every third song, finishing with a dizzying swirl of lightning quick blues licks and slide guitar. Favourites Skywriter and Rosie saw the crowd come alive as evening nearly descended into some kind of tribal dance. Grunwald firmly ruled for compulsory boogying in a few songs. The crowd obliged happily.
The evening’s climax was undoubtedly Grunwald’s distorted and driving rendition of crowd favourite; Serious. The pure vocal power of lines “Stop taking life so serious!” belted with Grunwald’s trademark muddy howl, made you nearly want to just cower in the corner and scream “Ok, Ok, I wont!” Of course, the convincingly imposing persona depicted in some of his songs is a tribute to his vocal prowess and song writing. Ash Grunwald is easily one of the friendliest men in Australian music. Who else could be so charming in telling the heckler who loudly cut one of his intros off to “shut up, you drunk prick!” with a big toothy smile. “Just kidding bro,” he quickly added to the laughs of the crowd. One can only imagine the fate of that guy if it had’ve been a surly Tim Rogers or Phil Jamieson playing.
Anyone worried about Grunwald’s new, slightly beat infused, direction were relieved to find that he did not shy at all away from the organicness of his sound. Amusingly, Grunwald actually commended the sound-man for making his electronic snare sound like early Phil Collins.
By the end of the evening it was as if the crowd had forgotten they were even indoors. Ash Grunwald had torn down the walls of the Fly By Night with ballsy roots and blues replacing them with a campfire around which the audience sat. Grunwald’s parting; “see ya later” caused a groan of disappointment. Up stood the crowd and out they filed into the cool night. Up sprang the walls and the campfire fizzled out for until another night, hopefully not too far away.
