Timber and Steel

Image Courtesy of The Rescue Ships

Three’s Company Feat. The Rescue Ships, Tash Parker and Scott Spark
7 May 2011, The Globe
Brisbane

“This is a very strange gig isn’t it,” remarked Brian Campeau wryly to the globe’s half-empty band room.

“They’re all strange these days,” replied partner Elana Stone. And there was something unique about that show. It gathered some of Australia’s finest musicians in one night, but there was no extravagance to the occasion, barely any formality at all. Nonetheless, with the chiming guitar harmonics that began the Rescue Ships set, the room was transformed, transfixed. We all knew we were lucky to be there. This was something special.

I had expected the technical excellence both musicians are renowned for, and my expectations were entirely fulfilled. First song “Mountains” was more epic than any Youtube clip could hope to illustrate, the power in their remarkable voices and the blend of their guitar and accordion evoking the depth of full-bodied ensembles. In Haast, named after the New Zealand town, they sang the first half of each verse in alternating syllables. In other hands a comedy routine, here it’s so natural that you’re hardly conscious of it even when it’s drawing you in.

The same goes for the complex time signatures they navigate so easily that they seem entirely accessible to the most casual listener. Triple J’s Dom Allessio said it best when, referring to their Sydney show the next night, he tweeted: “Watching The Rescue Ships play music is like watching Stephen Hawking do maths. ON ANOTHER LEVEL!”

What I didn’t expect was the visible intimacy, both between the couple as they played and between them and us. There is a tradition of distance in such complex music, but their honesty and humility overcame that. Rarely have I seen precision and emotion better bound.

And still within their sincerity there was room to play. In the middle of Campeau’s song “fallen” which closed their set, Elana, not a drummer, decided to attempt a “spare” solo on the kit waiting at the back of the stage. “This should be interesting,” Brian chuckled, and it was. He wound up the solo by affectionately sliding his guitar into “Twinkle twinkle”, then, after our appreciative cheer, they effortlessly resumed the song, bringing the set to a close with the same vast and unique beauty that began it.

***

Since hearing her astounding debut album “Waking Up” last November, my attempts to see Tash Parker live have been thwarted several times by life and other accidents. The rich layers of sound she created in studio were a large part of what drew me to her, and I may have worried that their absence would outweigh her performance.

Of course, I’d have been wrong to do so. Her set only served to show a new side to both her music and her character. Each song was preceded by an anecdote, or a clue – “When it Rains”, an atypical love song about that person who can stop you drinking too much scotch, and “Summers”, her awakening to the alienness of her new town and the distant sounds of mating koalas.

These little images drew me further into her lyrics, allowing me to see them as pieces of her own story as well as my own. Her songs are universal, but only she could have written them. New song “Point of View” sees her reflecting, over her gentle, crystalline guitar, on that moment when you realise that there are two sides to an argument and you’re on the wrong one. It could have been bitter, but she gives it as much tenderness as melancholy. If this is what her second album holds in store, we should all be pre-ordering it now.

If there was anything missing from Parker’s set, it was album highlight “Taking Back Her Name”, though given its subject matter and her mother in the audience, I can understand that. It was more than made up for by “Not Unprepared”, itself a song about absence. This was the song that made me buy “Waking Up”, and with her voice and guitar, and my own long distance relationship in mind, every word had all the weight it needed.

She closed with country vignette “Baby All the time”, noting that she’d like to make an album full of these. I’d buy that too. In studio, it was a playful digression, but here it was the perfect epilogue, enhanced by a hardness in her voice the recording couldn’t capture.

Then she was joined by her tour mates for an obligatory group effort. Scott Spark’s piano did a lot to hold together their cover of Babybird’s “You’re Gorgeous”, and I could see that it should have been gospel, but it was too hurried and uneven for the meaning to come through. Given their study methods (a bottle of wine and bossa nova in the wrong key), it was bound to be more party than punch, but I was a little disappointed nonetheless.

***

Scott Spark came out with an unusual but inspired choice of openers, the final track from last year’s debut album. “Eat Your Heart Out” introduced his rhythm section gently, letting Tim Fairless’ bass and Hik Sugimoto’s drums role under his Fender Rhodes. This was a tight unit, with all the grace of a jazz piano trio, and all hands deferring to Spark’s thin melody.

Melody is his forte – he is a little Burt Bacharach, a little Rufus Wainwright, and inevitably a little Brian Wilson. His voice suggests none of these things, but its lack of stylistic embellishment feels like a statement of intent. His delivery is colloquial and determinedly individual, something to set against his carefully considered arrangements. And it conveyed the frustration and bitterness in crooked rock song “Elvis” perfectly, his band falling easily into the angry groove.

The limits of the live setting gave his songs an immediacy that served them well. The dramatic imagery in “Kathleen” struck much harder with a full drum kit behind it, replacing the studio’s flimsy backbeat. “Fail Like You Mean” it was just as delightfully crunchy as on record, but came with a lot more gusto. And my personal favourite, “Delusions of the Heart”, was as aggressive as I’d hoped it would be, proving that piano can be driven just as dangerously as its trendier string’d foe, in the right hands.

There was new stuff too, namely “Barry for President”, a song about not being Peter Allen, and how badly our national identity is broken. Spark’s style of offbeat social commentary somehow became overbearing idealism in “What is in a World”, but here it was a lot more compelling and focused, suggesting that there’s some great satire ahead of him.

Strangely, he decided to end with a new song too, perhaps saving his best for an encore that never came. The awkward end to the show says nothing about him, and everything about the scattered crowd. We were one of the most respectful audiences I’ve seen, but too conscious of the space around us to feel united.

That’s a shame, because all of these artists deserve better. “Say Something Funny” featured some of Spark’s most challenging lyrics yet, and yet sounded like it had survived decades, like a much-loved hit from a veteran songwriter. And that was the most exciting thing about that strange little gig. We all knew who we’d come to see. We all recognized their talent. But that night we learnt that the world is yet to see the best of them. We were not only lucky to be there, we were honoured.