Award winner well received
AN excited full house reciprocated the relaxed warmth of awardwinning musician Don McGlashan at the Glenroy Auditorium on Friday evening with spontaneous singalongs, foot stamping, standing ovations and cheers.
The use of loop feeds recorded on stage, from horn, guitar and keyboard, generated deeper textures than those naturally available to a duo and honestly exposes McGlashan’s compositional structures.
His material for the show was drawn from across his highly successful career.
Chris O’Connor, the thoughtful percussionist seen recently in the Regent Theatre with Phoenix Foundation, provided an excellently innovative, sympathetic and delicate highlight to McGlashan’s work.
Most of the playlist and generous list of encores was wonderful.
Most of the repertoire is well known to an audience ready and willing to thoroughly enjoy themselves.
Several numbers stood out for that extra bit of performance inspiration and for their lyric content.
The reflective Lucky Stars and Dominion Road are great examples of McGlashan’s gentle observations of the human condition made large through being couched in deep musical textures.
The slyly raunchy The Heater is an anthem to the need for human warmth.
Anchor Me sung memorably for Helen Kelly (RIP) inspired the audience to join in the soulful refrain. Miracle Sun is a beautiful enduring and infectious anthem to innocence. Hold on to Your Loneliness is effectively rousing.
Pulled Along by Love has an exciting and aptly compulsive beat with excellent lyrics.
A Thing Well Made illustrated to chilling effect how something destructive can be viewed as a thing of beauty. Sadly, the lyrics and difficult concept in Charles Kingsford Smith were drowned out by the accompaniment.
The audience cheered the muchloved Harbour Bridge which must stand as McGlashan’s signature tune. Its final line, ‘‘gracefully we’re turning’’, is still a rich salute to New Zealand’s distinctions.