The concept of a pub with no beer - in Ireland of all places! - may seem like a contradiction in terms, but it's the scenario that confronts us tonight.
Connolly's of Leap, a small pub/ venue in the heart of West Cork, has - sporadically - hosted great, low-key shows by everyone from Shellac to the Dirty Three and Gold Blade to the Bhundu Boys over the years, but its' long-term future (has it been sold or not?) remains the subject of local rumour aplenty and when W&H arrive tonight we are told there's "no drink at all, only the performance", which seems quixotic to say the least.
Unless it's the desire to make party hats for local donkeys that Rennie regularly refers to tonight, one can only assume that it's Mr. & Mrs. Sparks' affection for the pub that has secured this last minute addition to the band's Irish/ UK dates. Yet the 50 or so regulars who have turned out are glad to a man for THE HANDSOME FAMILY usually wheel out something special when they drop into this funny little rural venue with its' omnipresent backdrop featuring the crossed hammers from Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.'
Hearteningly, it proves to be a case of history repeating tonight, too, for the generous 90 minutes or so of this set is one of the best of the eight HFshows this writer has witnessed over the past seven years or so. Certainly way better than the listless, becalmed hour they stumbled through in Cork's Savoy Centre when your reviewer last caught them playing with Giant Sand in the summer of 2005.
Past form has demonstrated that it's invariably when Mr. & Mrs. Sparks tour with an extended line-up that they are at their best, so it's great to discover that Brett's bro' Darryl is again behind the drums and that the Family ranks have swelled to include honorary Handsome man Stephen Dorocke. Your reviewer last encountered him adding pedal steel to Chris Mills' under-rated 'Kiss It Goodbye' album around the turn of 2000, but he's since moved from his native Chicago to Portland, Oregon, and indeed featured on a couple of tracks on The Handsomes' most recent album, 2006's 'Last Days Of Wonder.'
Dorocke is something of a find, too. He embroiders the songs with everything from lap steel to 8-string ukelele and his violin duels gamely with Brett's chunky Gretsch on a swampy, Gun Club-ish re-invention of old favourite 'When The Helicopter Comes' and plays a similar foil to Rennie's sparky banjo on the still-potent 'Weightless Again': described tonight by Rennie as "so depressing we almost didn't record it - little did we know it would become the closest we'd ever have to a hit."
This writer, though, is relieved that tonight's show is a more varied affair that the lacklustre 'greatest hits' they'd resorted to at the Savoy show. There's only a smattering of pre-'Twilight' material and perfunctory readings of 'My Sister's Tiny Hands' and the inevitable 'Down In The Ground' suggest they can play these in their sleep these days. Having said that, a nicely-weighted and utterly heart-rending 'So Much Wine' and a spirited 'Cathedrals' (saved for the encore) serve to remind us why we fell for Americana's First Couple in the first place.
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Over half the set, however, is culled from The Handsomes' most recent pair of albums, 'Singing Bones' (2003) and the recent 'Last Days Of Wonder' and the majority of it sounds terrific tonight. Despite the crib sheet repeatedly falling from Brett's mic stand, they make it through 'Gail With The Golden Hair' with some aplomb, while 'The Forgotten Lake' is serene and lovely and the merciless shipwreck story described in 'After We Shot The Grizzly' ("The captain caught a fever, we tied him to a tree/ we stared into the fire and tried not to hear his screams") is couched by a vintage soft-shoe shuffle and some gorgeous, drifting steel from Dorocke. He adds a similar, silvery dimension to the hilariously melancholic 'Flapping Your Broken Wings' where Brett and Rennie harmonise to perfection and Darryl makes some telling, Beach Boys-style contributions.
They leave us with a terrific double-whammy from 'The Last Days Of Wonder'. The spooked and otherworldly 'Tesla's Hotel Room' seems like a distant, desolate cousin of the none-sadder 'Passenger Pigeons', while the numbed-out, self-explanatory 'All The Time In Airports' reminds us that - when the spirit moves them - The Handsomes still enjoy the occasional foray into something akin to rock'n'roll, even if the backbeat is at odds with the forlorn lyric referring to the distance that widens between some people who travel regularly together. The evergreen 'Cathedrals' finally sends us home happy, even though it's hard to imagine a song about our impending mortality ("every one of us is swept away like breadcrumbs") having such a potentially joyous effect.
Such is the power of The Handsome Family's curiously skewed worldview, though, and it's somehow fitting that in this obscure venue surrounded by fields and donkeys that they should recapture the magic we loved 'em for in the first place. That's cause for celebration in my book and if I can find a pub serving an alcoholic beverage I'll happily drink to their return.
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