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Joshua Radin/ Erin McCarley, Fillmore, San Francisco, 8/21/08
08/22/2008 It is my first day in San Francisco and it is not going well. I am swaying slightly in the middle of a cross section of all the roads in the Western hemisphere, trying to light a cigarette with a broken Bic and hail a cab (which, incidentally, look identical to pizza delivery cars) whilst a man with cheese in his beard repeatedly informs me that he is the Official Point of Information for the city. I finally get a cab, it smells a little like barbeque chicken but I put that down to coincidence, and trace my way across the rolling hills to see Joshua Radin play at The Fillmore. I want to soar over hilltops like they do in Bullitt but the cab driver (pizza delivery boy?) remains stoic and tightlipped and I dare not ask. Now here I need to insert a brief disclaimer. I have not heard of Joshua Radin. I am only going to this show because my friend (my room and board in San Fran, actually) is deeply and profoundly in love with him and I wanted to be all open minded and stuff. Before I got on the plane I you-tubed him and quite wanted to hit him in his pudgy smug face. But, and I repeat it like a mantra for all fifty minutes of his set, my friend is deeply and profoundly in love with him and I want to be all open minded, and stuff. Joshua Radin comes on to the stage wide eyed and thoughtful. He is wearing grey slacks and looks like he owns dogs. I know instinctively that I am his natural predator and the manipulative pap he is about to spew forth is going to make me angry. I am not wrong. He plays Nick Drake-esque guitar and sings softly of love and truth and beauty. Except the guitar never changes from the same three chords and he actually literally sings about love and truth and beauty. Some choice refrains include “You are the one I’ve been waiting for tonight,” “You look lovely tonight” and “it hasn’t felt like this before/it hasn’t felt like home before.” Every song, I am convinced, is exactly the same. It is a shame because his backing band are good, there is a cello and a double bass and drums and each song begins interestingly and then Radin chimes in and washes the shore clean of any distinctive nuances. I don’t believe a word he says and I spend most of the time actually rolling my eyes. I go for a cigarette in the middle of the set, possibly alienating my friend for life, but it was either that or dismemberment. At one point, I’m pretty sure he rhymed “life” with “strife.” The crowd was reverent and I felt confused and righteous, like I was in that scene in the movie when the hero comes in and tries to make the villagers understand that public execution is not the answer (“But don’t you see? Why can’t you SEE??”). About two-thirds through the set, Radin admits his early influences were The Beatles and Bob Dylan and that the next song is called “No Envy, No Fear," lifted directly from a Dylan quote. My insides splutter and an ominous cover-shaped cloud looms. The encore is Radin, jumped down from the stage so he can be among “the people,” covering Bob FUCKING Dylan “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” I push myself out towards to miraculously empty bar and order a shot of whisky, at this point ordering drinks solely for their medicinal properties. Radin is gone, I think, and I edge back inside with trepidation, but all is well, the beast sleeps. But the reason I am writing this review is not to exorcise my utter loathing for this tepid lump of badness. It is because the opening act, Erin McCarley, was brilliant. I always have this perverse love for shows where the supporting musician outshines the headliner. It’s the appeal of the underdog, it is the geek getting the girl. So, Erin McCarley. She steps on stage and the first words out of her precise little mouth is “This is dreamy,” and I quake. I check for bare feet, any sign of Joss Stone pseudo-hippie-death, but before I can check she has opened her mouth to sing and it is beautiful. Her songs sound like fairytales, they sound like clear rivers and open plains. It is just her, a massive guitar which has to be removed by a technician because she is so tiny, and a guy in a trilby playing the keyboard. Later, a man who looks suspiciously like Harold Ramis will come on and play the cello. She looks like a kid playing dress up in her mother’s closet, her hair is piled on to her head and she wears a long strapped dress that hangs down to the floor. Musically, she is like all the best bits of Joanna Newsom, Cat Power, and Laura Marling rolled into one and I am excited. Her voice floats and dips, it is bare and spinning and sometimes she uses her larynx like a slide guitar, bending notes in a bluesy fashion. Her songs are like looking in a sideview mirror, it is beautiful because it seems to be about things that are lost and cannot be contained. At one point it is just her and the cello and it feels voyeuristic, like we are eavesdropping on something private. As her set finishes the crowd are frozen and I wince again, not from whisky, but because her voice makes my chest tighten and I want to capture her in a bottle and watch her flutter. Her album comes out on October 28th and I am going to seek it down like it is the last Pepsi in the desert. Comments [post a comment]
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