Live: Kurt Vile, Alistair Galbraith and Emily Edrosa at the Kings Arms

Kurt Vile, Alistair Galbraith and Emily Edrosa
Thursday December 1 2011
Kings Arms, Auckland 

It started out pretty orderly at the Kings Arms last night, with a sizable early crowd listening attentively to Emily Edrosa, the recent solo project from Street Chant’s Emily Littler. In fact it wasn’t so much attentive as absorbed. With acoustic guitar through pedals (which popped painfully every time she pulled the plug to tune) and over cassette backing-tracks of reverb-subdued rhythms amongst what sounded like field recordings, she produced some really interesting layers in each song, and it was nice to hear her voice in a slightly different style.

Setting up for the next act I saw a guy wander on stage holding what looked like a rooftop TV antenna. Alistair Galbraith was in a word, amazing. Sitting down with just his telecaster, the antenna and some electronics around his feet, in this understated way he seemed to bring together all aspects of his musical and artistic history. I remember once going to the art gallery when he had fitted out a large room with tensioned wires like massive guitar strings, which reverberated the whole place when you played them. He also made a fire-fueled organ (years before David Byrne’s building-instrument). Galbraith certainly seemed more interested in the sounds and resonances that he was constructing onstage than any idea of entertainment. The words he sang or chanted were more like stories or poems over the accompaniment than suitably fitted lyrics. My favourite line was “kill me if I don’t die trying.”

The place was packed by the time Kurt Vile started with a couple of solo tunes from his latest album, Smoke Ring For My Halo. Fortunately it all ran roughly to schedule, as Kurt Vile & the Violators treated the crowd to an almost two hour set. Vile mumbled quips in his best attempted local accent, and charmingly drawled songs which everyone sang along to. Most of the set came from Halo, with the Violators taking the album’s songs and turning things way up. The drummer carried the rhythm section in a big way – smashing the floor toms with maracas in hand – while Vile was flanked by two guitarists, one who played a Fender Bass VI baritone guitar, which filled out the sound but kept things jangly. For one song the other guitarist pulled out a tenor saxophone which I think proved unnecessary as it was drowned in the echoing distortions of the other instruments. A harmonica could have done just as well, but maybe Vile’s trying to live up to the Springsteen associations. He really did when he played ‘Downbound Train’, one of my favourite songs, and one of the best Springsteen covers I’ve heard.

It was one of those cool Kings Arms nights where you leave a little deafer and a lot happier. I think Auckland has a lot to thank Strange News for, I doubt I would have experienced so many good shows like this if it was all up to Frontier Touring.