The hectic mass of boggle-eyed office workers scuttles speedily towards the train station like one long, fat, pinstriped caterpillar.
The nectarine streetlights flicker and nod into wet pools of existence upon the tyre-worn tarmac stretches. Just around the inauspicious corner, sporting a sprawling amusement arcade on its peninsula, sits the Dry Bar, lowering its eyelashes calmly in the autumn drizzle, slowly taking in its own relaxed, maroon-red atmosphere and the smiling chatter of a handful of sleepy people assembled around comfortable wooden rectangles and tiny candle flames quietly humming in crimson glasses.
The fifty or so here tonight are settled, content and almost at home, providing the perfect situation for ALI WHITTON and his band to come along and transform it further into a communal
lounge of soft, cinnamon acoustics and honest, open delivery.
To an appreciative audience of new and old, Whitton, Naomi Abbot and Sam Stockdale take up their instruments (guitar, voila and voice) and slowly carve a deep hole in the heart of everyone present, pouring into it a soothing stream of flowing, layered melodies and meditative ache.
'The Storm', from this year's album-split-into-two-EPs project, 'Kisses/Curses', sees a deceptive, melancholy opening swell, burst and crack into a whirling torrent of steep runs from the very depths to the very tops of Naomi's strings, a fragile power emanating from Ali's lungs. His voice rings with a warm naivete and an innocence tainted by the grown-up world, a gently
wavering balance of youth and wisdom.
Each time he inhales with a slow, soft angelic smile before a note, this picture of young oblivion is slowly brushed over by a faint yet permanent watermark of adult hurt and wintery loneliness as the tales of mulled-over losses and unexpected silver linings drift towards us on broken wings from the stage.
The child in him, though, grins through every time; this is perhaps what we love most about Ali and what sets him apart from the downtrodden, stubbled backpackers carrying thirty-stone loads of weary experience on their stooped spines - he hurts, yes, but he SMILES.
|
Ali reminds us that there was once a time when we could sit focused entirely upon a static butterfly sat on a leaf on the windowsill, or of a journey in the frozen-up cocoon of a car to
your relatives' in the middle of nowhere for Christmas, or of waking up and having not a single destructive thought come crashing into your mind. He brings back those moments ocomplete stillness and knows that they can happen again; maybe when we least expect them.
The set gradually tenses its tears, quietly bottling up emotions until the heartrending harmonies of 'Memories' and new song 'The Good Things Are The Enemy' brim with electricity. Then, calmer now and more contemplative, after the dark clouds have passed overhead, we slip and wind down into the reflection of 'Heavy' - probably Ali's most accessible song, yet in no way diluted or easy on the ear; in truth, it's possibly his most candid, wounded affair, its moving lyrics daring to stare you straight in the eye, unabashed, like a determined and damaged lover looking into the cold, stone fix of the one who just ended their world as it was. It's devastatingly good.
But there is no bitterness or malice present anywhere; no thorns of poison sneakily nipped in under the skin of a friendly viola or humble smile. No hard feelings, just the knowledge that pain exists but must be dealt with and that music can help us realise what we're here for in the first place.
Tonight, we're here for something real, relative and just maybe more essential than breathing.
|
