New Zealand fashion and lifestyle blog

Love songs til midnight

Paul Kelly, Australian singer-songwriter, has a place in my heart from my years listening to student radio in the nineties. Last night, it was obvious that that’s true for a lot of people: the buzz was palpable in Queen Street…

There’s a special kind of fatigue that sets in towards the end of a festival – you’ve seen so much, been so delighted and disappointed and delighted again – so it was hard to leave the house AGAIN last night for what was our festival swansong – Auckland Festival of the Arts runs until Sunday the 19th, but last night, the first night of Paul Kelly’s four night show A-Z, was our last.

Paul Kelly, Australian singer-songwriter, has a place in my heart from my years listening to student radio in the nineties. Radio Massey (RADMAS to those in the know) was a permanent fixture once I retreated into my teenage bedroom. I’d sit at my desk, doing my homework, with the radio in front of me, left hand poised over the ‘record’ button so that I could tape any song I liked the sound of. I could then listen back and try and track the artist down. Having an older brother who DJ’d at Radio Massey meant I’d often be able to score the CD for free if I begged. One evening, hard at work on a history assignment, I heard a scratchy voice sing: “and I was not the only one/taking notice in that bar/when I first met your ma.”

You’ll have to excuse me: I’m a product of my upbringing – I’m a sucker for a poet/troubadour singing well-written songs about love. It’s all the Dylan and Cohen I was raised on. Even as a 15-year old, I loved Chris Knox’s ‘Not Given Lightly’ for the line “this is a lovesong for John and Leisha’s mother/it wasn’t easy/I might not write another.” So – Paul Kelly – he spoke to me.

Last night, it was obvious that that’s true for a lot of people: the buzz was palpable as soon as we parked the car opposite the Town Hall and crossed Queen St – with stylishly dressed couples a-plenty and several groups of women in their 40s quaffing wine and wearing their best. They were there to remember what they were doing the first time they heard Paul Kelly.

Kelly started promptly at 9.15 in one of the smaller chambers at the Town Hall; a perfect venue for an intimate, personal concert where Kelly, with assistance from his nephew Dan Kelly on guitar, takes you through his extensive songbook – from A-Z. Each of the four concerts only covers a section of his repertoire, but his long history of writing and singing about love, Australia, and folklore means there’s a lot to cover.

The opening lines of the concert drew me in just as ‘How I met your Ma’ had done 20 years ago; a song I had not heard but that yet seemed so familiar – a ode to place along the lines of The Dance Exponents’ ‘Christchurch (On Cashel St I wait)’ or The Muttonbirds’ ‘Dominion Road’ or even Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’. ‘Adelaide’ begins with a perfect Antipodean image: “The wisteria on the back verandah is still blooming/and all the great-aunts are either insane or dead” before describing Kelly’s father’s death.

What followed that perfect intro was a charming meander through Kelly’s songwriter’s notebook, a mixture of the big hits and the b-sides, all the while the crowd delighted to wander back into the past. He’s playing again tonight, Friday and Saturday: I’m guessing he’ll play ‘When I met your Ma’ Saturday night given its location in the alphabet.

I might just try to get along to one more show; that festival fatigue has lifted and I’m reminded once more of the pleasure of live music.

By Kate Hannah 20 March 2011.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *