[ATTENDED: September 27, 2018] Graham Coxon
I’ve been a fan of Blur since the beginning (I always picked them over Oasis). I have never seen them live and it seems like I never will. And while I enjoy Gorillaz I’m not going to see them live either. So Graham Coxon solo was a wonderful draw for me.
My big attraction to Blur is Damon Albarn’s voice, but the music, especially Coxon’s guitar, is really fantastic too.
Coxon has released a bunch of solo albums. I bought the first two. The second one, The Golden D was an experimental noise fest (for the most part) and I didn’t listen to anymore after that. Well, from what I gather, the rest of his solo albums were folk songwriting with some fantastic finger-picking guitar work.
I didn’t know what Coxon would be playing on his tour (I had no idea he had released 8 albums and had done the sound track for the TV show The End of the F***ing World. So I looked up a review of his live show. The one I read was from The Telegraph back in 2014, so maybe I shouldn’t have counted it but the crux of the review was that there were
two substantial sets in one evening, the first showcasing his singer-songwriter skills in an acoustic session, the second allowing him to let rip with the abrasive, surly grunge-pop sound that, back in the day, put a deliciously destructive mark on Blur’s melodies.
The second half of the evening saw Coxon kick away his stool and unleash the beast. The first three numbers were aggressive freak-outs, as if he was deliberately trying to dispel the lo-fi contemplation of what had gone before.
It was this duality that sold me on seeing the show. I wanted to experience Coxon’s loud noisy breakouts live and in person. And in a venue where virtually nobody goes (The Foundry’s capacity is 450, but there’s couldn’t have been more than 100 people there) it seemed like a great opportunity to see this musician up close.
Rolling Stone announced a rare North American solo tour: The two-week, 10-date trek marks Coxon’s first acoustic one-man shows in North America.
Had I read the rest of the piece about his new tour–his first in the States in nearly a decade, I would have seen:
Each gig will feature Coxon and his acoustic guitar mining songs from his eight solo records as well as music from his score for Netflix’s The End of the F***ing World.
Not that this would have changed my mind, but I wouldn’t have been expecting freakouts.
When Coxon came out he had an amusing nebbish quality about him. One would never have guessed that he was part of one of the biggest bands in the world (and had played a sold out Madison Square Garden just three years earlier).
He sat down, asked us what we did today and seemed to think about what he would play. He has a booklet at his feet which contained…what? Lyrics? Chords? Recipes? He flipped through pages but never actually seemed to consult it during the songs. He said “there’d be no surprises because he’s playing the same setlist every night and we all knew the setlists, because it’s online the second the first note is played (although as I write this, my show’s setlist is not online). He did say that “for us” maybe he’d change it around a bit.
I hadn’t heard Coxon sing in over a decade and when he did, I was surprised, once again, by that nebbish quality. As The Telegraph wrote:
The acoustic set laid bare his voice. It was strained and not always in tune, Estuary vowels stretched over complex chord changes. But there is a humanity there: “She made caffe latte and smiled at me/But then she smiled at everybody,” he lamented in Latte, his touching folk song for lonely hearts.
He said he was very nervous playing in front of us and he acted the part, mussing up his hair, removing and putting on his glasses, making aghast faces at the notes he was playing (mostly during tuning–I didn’t hear a bum note all night). And then he started with “R U Lonely?”
I wondered briefly, if he wasn’t the guy from Blur, would I enjoy this. The lyrics are fairly pedestrian, and his voice isn’t great But, oh man, that guitar.
The first few songs weren’t that amazing guitar-wise, but the sound he made was so assured and confident–he knew how to fill a room with beautiful sound–even if he was just playing simple chords.
But the thing about this show is that it developed over the course of the night.
The first few songs were quiet and simple, like “Falling.” Between songs he chatted with us a little. He told us we were too quiet between songs (we were) and that he could hear every little noise around the room. Although later he told us he was hearing-damaged from playing loud shows and he pretended not to hear what people were saying to him. “It’s 9:20” he said when someone requested a song. He joked that that was a bad joke and said that he was “on a humor excursion… and it’s gong badly.”
The songs started to get more complex musically (lyrically they stayed mostly in the same vein). I enjoyed “Baby, You’re Out of Your Mind” and “This Someone Ain’t You.” He had a looping pedal and started using his guitar-playing as backing track for some soloing. I really enjoyed the soloing he did because it was based around chords rather than fast notes. This was a great solo from “Someone.”
At one point someone asked him to play “Coffee and TV’ and he said he didn’t know the chords, he only knew the shapes he played in the song. It sounded like a non-response, but watching him play his solos I think I understood what he meant.
His voice also got stronger as the night went one–much less of his vowel enunciating and more power. Although he did say that he wrote one of the songs when he was sick and his voice was all gravelly he would love to have someone like Jeff Bridges with a big beard sing it.
Graham had played all originals until he asked us if we knew Blind Faith. He played an amazing cover of “Can’t Find My Way Home” singing with a nimble voice far removed from where he started–it really felt like he was nervous to start with and had found his footing–but that can’t be the case.
He then played a Blur song, “this one has your country’s name in it.” To my ear its the least Blur-sounding song and I almost didn’t recognize it, but sure enough it was the Modern Life is Rubbish song, “Miss America.”
The final three songs of the set really brought out the rocking elements of his acoustic performance. He sang louder, fuller. And he demonstrated his finger picking technique which was really amazing. “Walking All Day” was an excellent set ender. with this great looped solo.
Then he told us he was going to go away and would be back after a few minutes. Since I still didn’t know he wouldn’t be playing a squealing electric guitar set, and since that electric guitar sat there unplayed all show I was sure he’d be coming back for some noise.
He came back out and picked up…. his acoustic guitar. He also put finger picks on each finger He played an amazing song that he said was written by Elizabeth Cotten (the origin of the phrase Cotten Picking, because of how she played the guitar) He said she wrote it when she was nine years old “Which is pretty good.” It was great
He played one more Blur Song, “You’re So Great.” He played it much slower than the version on Blur and I could actually hear the words, which was nice.
Then he picked up the electric guitar. Although things didn’t change dramatically as he played “There’s Something In The Way That You Cry.” But it was nice to see him use the whammy bar.
The final couple of songs featured more guitar picking and looping, but it was the last song “Sorrows Army” which felt huge. He played it on acoustic but midway through, he even busted out his electric guitar for a wild solo which he played over the looping-guitar picking. I could have used about 15 more minutes of that, but that’s okay.
And that was the end of the show. He left. I hung around for a bit but there was no merch table, nowhere that it seemed like he’d be coming out to sign anything (I saw a couple of people with bags full of things to sign).
So I went home full of glorious guitar playing and questions about if Blur would ever tour again.
- R U Lonely? ⇑
- Latte ≅
- Baby, You’re Out Of Your Mind ≅
- Falling [single]
- All Over Me ℵ
- That Someone Ain’t You [unreleased]
- Alright [new]
- Don’t Believe Anything I Say ♥
- Flights to the Sea (Lovely Rain) ♥
- Angry Me ***
- Saturday Night ***
- It’s All Blue ***
- She Left the Light On ***
- Roaming Star ***
- Can’t Find My Way Home (Blind Faith)
- Miss America (Blur)
- All the Rage [new]
- Brave the Storm ⊗
- Walking All Day ***
- encore
- Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie (Elizabeth Cotten)
- In the Morning ⊗
- You’re So Great (Blur)
- There’s Something in the Way That You Cry ***
- See a Better Day ♥
- Sorrow’s Army ⊗
*** The End of the F***ing World (2018)
⊗ The Spinning Top (2009)
♥ Love Travels at Illegal Speeds (2006)
ℵ Happiness in Magazines (2004)
≅ The Kiss of Morning (2002)
⇑ The Sky is Too High (1998)
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