Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan@ National Theatre, Melbourne(01/08/2011)

Wed 3rd Aug, 2011 in Gig Reviews

There’s something so un-rock’n’roll about an all seater venue. Perhaps it’s the lack of room for anarchy when one is sandwiched between the jolly housewife munching on Mars pods and the tweed-jacketed muso ‘hmm’ing indiscriminately at the introduction at every new song. Luckily, this wasn’t a rock’n’roll show – not even close. If anything it seemed more like a high-school recital, but that’s not to say it wasn’t without its charms.

He of whisky-soaked grunge alumni and she of the jangling twee-pops fraternity make for as interesting a couple in appearance as they do on record. While the backing band prove nothing except that plaid shirts, funny pork pie hats and wanton gesticulation aren’t so much a stereotype as a pre-requisite, the vision of the baroque, sweetly mannered Isobel Campbell alongside the black clad anti-priest of Mark Lanegan is arresting as they come. And just as well since there is precisely 0.1% effort put into audience interaction this evening; a single concession to the preposterous idea that there are other people in the room being the incredulously sweet Isobel timidly thanking Australia for having her along.

Lanegan, for his part, doesn’t exude indifference so much as a lack of understanding of the situation he has somehow bafflingly found himself in. Never much of a showman, tonight is a tour de force in isolationism; the gravel-voiced enigma sauntering out of his bubble around the microphone only once for an impromptu sojourn backstage leaving Isobel to reluctantly perform alone for several numbers before returning looking as bemused as before. But then these indiscretions can somewhat be forgiven when you possess the rumbling baritone of a fallen Seraphim days deep into a bourbon bender. Campbell kicks off the soulful cotton-picking ballad, Backburner with a gorgeous rising couplet, but it’s when the former Screaming Tree swaggers into the song with, “put it on the back-burn, Momma” that our eyes flick from she to he… and stay there.

Or at least they would, if it weren’t for the compellingly off-beat nature of Isobel Campbell’s performance. Grabbing fists of her cotton white dress like a kindergartener while she stretches to hit the high notes or counting out with her fingers or swinging her arms to and fro mid song, the wee Scottish lass seems something like a girl more than half her age onstage. For all the childlike body language, hers is a presence that demonstrates a sense of control showing that it’s not nerves but rather inclination that drives her arms to occasionally flutter up and down like birds wings as she harmonises with the rock-solid troubadour beside her. In the aforementioned Backburner, there is a good 2 minutes that she spends floorbound, sat on her haunches experimenting, seemingly at random, with an array of fun percussion you wouldn’t expect to see outside of the classroom. Lanegan meanwhile stares pointedly at his mic stand, probably for the purpose of avoiding being privy to the visage beside him and risk shattering the last of his elusive attention-span.

Individually they are great, together their voices really are something else. Comparisons to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra are rife but their vocal dynamic may actually be closer to that of Johnny Cash and June Carter – the troubled gunslinger and the demure, young songbird. With the band crafting country-tinged acoustics and lilting string ballads with comparable ease, it’s left to the voices of Isobel and Mark to paint an all-encompassing picture of Americana at its best; driving in dusty Mustangs across desert highways or covered wagons over the windswept plains to the sounds of the Eagles and Edgar Allen-Poe. Neither the most involved nor the most polished performance in living memory, the symbiotic nature of the 2 artist’s voices swathed in the darkly lit tones of their American lullabies more than makes up for their lack of stage persona. If anything, the perceived naïve shyness of these 2 seasoned stars is the charm that lifts the performance above average – after all, it’s been 60 years; that whole rock’n’roll thing is getting a bit boring now.