Cass McCombs, Singing Skies @The Standard, Sydney (18/2/12)

Mon 20th Feb, 2012 in Gig Reviews

Such is Cass McCombs’ chronic and nearly pathological reluctance to be the centre of attention, that throughout tonight’s show – part of the peripatetic songwriter’s first ever tour of Australia – he continually pleads for the lights to be lowered on him and his band. His notorious reluctance to do press, to engage with the crowd when playing live or promote himself in any way are symptoms of a shyness that rather than hindering his profile, has actually become a key part of it.

McCombs comes to Australia on the back of probably the busiest year of his career (which began in 2004 with his first EP). Certainly in this part of the world, he has enjoyed attention for pretty much the first time thanks to his two albums Wit’s End and Humor Risk, the former an opaque and brooding masterpiece, the latter a more playful adventure. Cursed with the label of ‘a songwriter’s songwriter’ he may be, but few artists in the world are able to combine tradition, originality and such cutting lyrical imagery to the same degree. And encouragingly, The Standard’s audience was healthy.

Due to the unfortunate (and unexplained) cancellation of second support act Songs, warm-up duties were entrusted solely to emerging outfit Singing Skies, the current vehicle for Kell Derrig-Hall, who has been in and out of several Sydney bands over the years. His current band have a pleasantly down-home feel, the presence of a cello adding a certain refined quality to what are essentially quite simple folk-influenced tunes. Despite often appearing to drown in their own earnestness, Singing Skies show some promise and in their composure set a calm tone to the evening that lingered through the Songs-shaped gap in the schedule.

McCombs sauntered through the crowd to the stage without ceremony and began with Love Thine Enemy, a forceful opener that established the full power of his remarkable six-piece band. Most sublime was the pedal-steel, spectacular on Harmonia from 2009 album Catacombs. The majority of tonight’s set came from his pair of 2011 LPs, with County Line, Buried Alive and Robin Egg Blue all faithfully rendered, aside from some quite blissful additional instrumental passages, particularly on the former.

McCombs, ever willful and capricious, is also willing to explore his entire catalogue during his sets, and thus brings out the first song from 2005 album Prefection, Equinox as well as Bobby, King Of Boys Town from 2003’s A. The night’s overwhelming highlight, however, must be a quite blistering version of the extraordinary Lionkiller from 2008’s Dropping The Writ. A feverish track, the incessant riff is flogged out with abandon by each band member to a pulsating climax.

While such a reticent performer cannot be expected to give an encore, one minor and very inconsiderate grip might be that at roughly an hour, his set was a little too short. The fact that most of the songs on show tonight were slow and deliberate meant that other more energetic aspects of McCombs’ music were not explored.

Nevertheless, McCombs both as a performer and a recording artist reaches rare plateaus of heart and feeling, and that alone makes the trip from California worthwhile, however stand-offish he may appear.