Dan Haywood’s New Hawks

(supporting A Hawk and a Hacksaw)

Thursday, 14 April 2011

Islington Mill, Salford

I am rather partial to bands with loads of people on stage.  These guys had a total of nine, so I had a good feeling as soon as they came on.  Dan himself was a slender figure, and initially a touch awkward.  But he ingratiated himself with some good banter with the crowd, greeting us as Manchester before correcting himself.  This is Salford, of course.

And so they kicked off, with an alt-folk, country sound.  What I normally like about having this many people on stage is the anarchic, seemingly uncontrolled sound created.  But this was far from anarchic, all the playing tightly managed by Haywood.  His swivelling, pointing and gesturing kept everything exceedingly neat for the most part.  So if the many members of the band did not create anarchy, what did they create?  A wonderfully three-dimensional texture which drew the crowd in and created an irresistible excitement.

Haywood’s squeezed vocal range reminded me of a more slight Ian Dury, but with a great deal more folky soul.  The flyer quoted a review in Wire, comparing the band to Rolling Thunder era Dylan, and I find this spot-on.  His voice only helped to accentuate the overwhelming rush of sound coming from the other players, many of whom were multi-instrumentalists.  It was good to see that most of them were also from the North West, including Manchester legend, Paddy Steer on lap steel and bass.

Irreverent yet soulful, vast in scope yet tightly controlled, this band was a welcome surprise and, for me (cover your ears) even better than the superb main act.

John Grant

Thursday 24 March, 2011

Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester

Before arriving, I had been describing John Grant to my girlfriend by comparing him to a 60s folk sound similar to Neil Young, mixed with a more modern operatic pop sound similar to Rufus Wainwright. Seeing him live, I failed to see where I got the Neil Young comparison from. He seemed more akin to the big piano sound of Elton John. (Big piano. Cameron’s inflections have crept into my speech.)

The first half of the set was him singing and playing either piano or synth, while another guy played whichever he wasn’t playing. This was good, but then the other guy left. Despite his incredible voice, I then began to lose interest.

His ideas of tunecraft varied very little, and the impressiveness of his voice could not disguise this. Like Aidan John Moffat a couple of weeks ago, most of his songs were love songs in the sense that they were about love, and most of them were self-consciously downbeat.

But unlike Moffat, his tone and his lyrics exuded a self-pity to which I could not relate. There was something more American about him, more flamboyantly needy, more Blanche Dubois, whereas I preferred Moffat’s unlovely rawness. His Glaswegian drunk to Grant’s Southern Belle.

Big society. Big piano. Big society. Big piano. Big society. Big piano.