Music review: Father John Misty, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow
Father John Misty, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow ****
“There’s no need to fear me,” he assured the worshippers at his feet on tender entreaty When You’re Smiling and Astride Me. For this is a church of expansive roots rockers, eloquent storytelling and seductive singing, replete with a rather indulgent five sets of keyboards, which could be considered excessive even by prog rock standards.
Misty’s music is earthier, concerned with the thornier aspects of the human condition and sociopolitical culture. The smart Black Mirror-style satire Total Entertainment Forever coupled feelgood music with feelbad lyrics, while Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow was a leisurely low-slung saunter through easy listening country and lounge pop territory en route to a melodramatic crescendo.
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Hide AdThe entire set was characterised by such dynamism. The breezy uplift of Chateau Lobby #4 (In C for Two Virgins) was followed by the comedown country of Please Don’t Die and an intimate, understated and casually delivered rendition of The Palace pulsed with the potential to go nuclear.
Lest we got too cosy with free and easy country rocker Real Love Baby, there was always the toxic reckoning of Pure Comedy’s brief (though not in pop song terms) disgusted history of mankind to come.
Throughout, his six-piece band worked hard to make it look easy, showing off their chops with the searing rock explosion of Holy Shit and the strutting energy of rollicking Stonesy encore number Date Night. - Fiona Shepherd