Crooner From The Dark Side In Awesome Form

The Age

Saturday June 21, 2008

Michael Dwyer, Reviewer

BARRY ADAMSON

Corner Hotel, Richmond, June 19

www.barryadamson.com

THEY call him agent double-O 666. Or so Barry Adamson tells us in The Jazz Devil, one of his half-spoken vignettes from James Elroy's back pages. At times he seems more like one of James Bond's villains fronting the MGs, a bruised and defeated Lothario borrowing John Barry's horn section to spill his guts about a life of crime and indiscretions.

From the heavy rap of Still I Rise to the brassy instrumental, The Shadow of Death Hotel, Adamson's film-noir soundtrack style was beautifully served by his hard-hitting, six-piece band, although Nick Plytas' pivotal organ parts were buried in a tricky sound mix at times.

The violence of the band's attack sometimes recalled the Manchester crooner's pedigree as one of the first Bad Seeds, a connection also evident in his Reservoir Dogs attire. But Adamson's sense of humour is more pronounced and his mid-tempo funk grooves are a lot more sexy and accessible for the most part.

His set leaned on his latest album, Back to The Cat, highlights including the fast-car getaway of Straight Till Sunrise and one of his trademark femme fatale trysts, Walk On Fire.

Things turned darker in a difficult listening mid-section and the band's energy seemed to flag in Psycho Sexual, a point where tension should have been running high. But the packed crowd remained unerringly on Adamson's side and he worked them like a slightly menacing lounge club crooner. A lesser villain may have struggled under the combined weight of such a smoking band and the poetic contortions of his own tautly condensed stories, but Adamson remained in awesome control right up to the slightly ragged encore of Sly Stone's Thank you Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Agin. He may have raised a sweat, but he never removed his jacket.

© 2008 The Age

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