Venue: O2 Academy, Islington
I'll admit I didn't know much about Ryan Bingham, apart from the fact his song "The Weary Kind" was used in the recent Jeff Bridges film about a washed-up country singer Crazy Heart (and won him an Oscar), so in his case I'm clearly a bit of a Johnny-come-lately. My main thought was, well it's a Friday night, and I haven't been to a proper Americana-style gig for ages, so what's not to like?
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| Liam Gerner taking a turn during Ryan's set |
In short, nothing. It was a great night. The opener, Australian Liam Gerner, got proceedings off to a fine start with his fantastic guitar playing and strong blues voice, and the packed crowd was clearly there for a good time. Bingham's Dead Horses band (which included Gerner tonight) gave a fabulous, impressive display - loud, tight and totally relentless. As the set kicked off with "Dollar A Day" and was followed by "Depression" I found myself grinning at the prospect of more top class alt-country - bleak confessional songs backed up by a power house of a band. The set ranged across his three albums, Mescalito, Roundhouse Sun and last year's Junky Star. The end of the set saw Ryan play some solo acoustic tracks (including one in Spanish - Bingham is from New Mexico), with the band returning for the end of the encore. Their version of "Bread and Water" to finish up was especially blistering. Ryan's voice was a quite a revelation - it's the kind of voice you might at expect from an old singer accustomed to eating Marlboros and sleeping in bars for the last twenty years, but as you can see Ryan is pretty young and fresh faced (despite, I read later, a terrifying-sounding stint as a professional bull rider). They played for nearly two hours and I had a blast. In fact it made me want to get on the first plane back to America. Result.
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