Ryan came onto stage in the same approach he takes to life – not much ceremony and definitely no grace – tripping over guitar leads and complaining his guitar/piano/harmonica weren’t tuned to his liking. But once he got past that he played a beautiful set that could not be faulted.
The Cardinals set off Ryan’s eclectic style set to perfection. Their tightness and friendly banter on stage was great to see, as it’s rarely seen in this day and age of stage emotional obscurity.
The set consisted of about 70% off the new album Cold Roses and the rest older songs but also included a song written that day, Stella Blue – perhaps to be included in the two albums he’s due to release this year, and a jam-like Rolling Stones cover and then kept the crowd amused by refusing to play for five minutes as punishment to random fans yelling out their song requests which included Summer of ‘69 which he eventually played after much goading.
It was amazing how one man can bring a capacity crowd to a standstill and have their utmost enraptured attention with beautiful melodies and the next second be abusing them for being Australians (which was refuted by Catherine Popper on bass, at the end of the second set by announcing that Ryan was a closet Australia lover – join the queue Ryan!).
Overall a perfectly played set, musically and audience wise. Ryan put just enough of his ‘strange’ sense of humour into his performance to keep everyone guessing.
