Tim Rogers, Leena, the DiamondQuills @ the Annandale, Sydney(23/06/11)

Mon 27th Jun, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Jesus, can someone please give Tim Rogers a hug? I mean, he’s as not as beaten down as he was the last round of shows, but he’s not going to be on any toothpaste commercials anytime soon. Any great performer brings a certain level of baggage to work. A rock song about a sunny day in which nothing happens is not nearly as interesting as one about getting dumped by your girl (or boy) via text while driving home from work after being fired and crashing your car into an old persons home. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though. Adversity and drama are the loving parents of great art. As an audience, the appeal lies in plugging into a voyeuristic desire to watch someone unravel whilst simultaneously empathizing with their plight.

The thing about Rogers is that his baggage seems so heavy lately that it affects the whole spectrum of his live performance, regardless of the content or intent. In the past it has become too much (ahem – Falls Fest) but Thursday’s show was not the case. It was poised over the stabby end of an emotional knife in certain places, but maintained its balance and was all the more rewarding for it.

Freshly minted local outfit The Diamond Quills opened the show with a slew of irreverent folk songs, dancing nonchalantly across the fine line between sharp parody and flippant observation. Rob Clarkson spent a lot of time in Melbourne before calling Sydney home and there’s a healthy level of cynicism in his songwriting that’s hard to ignore. It doesn’t ever fall into the trap of becoming too acrid or alienating and instead maintains a playful tone. Robs voice was nice, holding a good tune, but was also fairly nasally. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and one recalls John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats as a great example. It’s unique and works well in context. His new partner in crime Emma Drive was also pretty great, with a delightful voice. The two worked really well together and form a natural partnership on stage, sharing the workload.

Second support Leena has such an extraordinary voice and it cut through the jostling crowd so easily, but then the pedestrian music she employed it for was almost criminal. Her set just seemed too melodramatic and had no contrast, no light and shade, just the same sort of semi dramatic, easy listening adult contemporary theme all the way through. Her songs just didn’t have enough character to render them unique or memorable and it’s such a shame. That sublime voice really was special, with a delicate vibrato and a fine texture like the surface of a mint leaf, begging for something with a bit more depth.

A Tim Rogers solo set is a very different animal to a You Am I set, especially of late. This one in particular seemed like a confessional. It felt like he was wrestling with something. What exactly that was (if anything) was not our concern, but it was an intimate set of songs scraped directly off the insides of his restless soul. His beautifully weathered voice seemed stretched trying to fill the void where a backing band usually is and his laconic narratives seemed to carry a raw edge to them as if they were layers of skin being delicately peeled back. There was an interesting element of tension when it seemed he wouldn’t be able to find the notes, and when he (almost always) did it was a sense of release, so the whole time there was a beautiful ebbing and flowing as we were listening. It was like watching a high jumper just make the bar.

His new solo album The Luxury of Hysteria formed a portion of his set list but you can’t go to a Rogers gig and not hear the ghosts of a hundred late nights in St Kilda and the Espy, You Am I floating around in the guts of his acoustic guitar. Heavy Heart has lost none of its potency and as he gently drove each sad metaphor home his voice sounded like the busted football he was singing about.

I wish I took better note of his accompanying guitarist’s name. His deftly timed flourishes and polished progressions balanced Rogers’ rough edged performance really well. His clean fret work was really sweet and added some spit shine to the whole deal.

This was a great performance. It had just a bit of drama and anticipation, some decent back and forth between us and Rogers’, a fine selection of tunes and an appreciative crowd. If indeed he’s had recent troubles they were there to see and not touch, and he wore them modestly, never letting them get in the way of a bone dry quip at some idiot’s expense, and never letting them stop him from settling into a song like an old armchair. It was a nice mellow way to start of a great week of music for the mighty Annandale. Happy Birthday!