For those buying into the concept of absence makes the heart
grow fonder, the fact that Slaid Cleaves unintentionally missed Birmingham off
his previous touring schedule may have been a blessing in disguise. Slaid has
always been well supported at the Kitchen Garden Café and for his triumphant
return the house full sign was almost being dusted down. On an upgrade from his
previous Birmingham dates, Slaid was this time accompanied by his sidekick
Scrappy Jud Newcomb and together they reeled off a continual chain of popular
tunes, well received by many long term fans populating the audience. Right from
the opening chords of ‘Horseshoe Lounge’
to a poignant unplugged tribute to the late Ian MacLagan over two hours later,
there was a distinctive Texas flavour from an honorary Texan now fully steeped
in the Lone Star State’s poetic culture.
With no apparent set list visible it didn’t take long for
the requests to kick in and probably nearly a third of the set were audience
shout outs stretching Slaid’s memory acumen to its limit. Any doubts about
immaculate recollection from his deep back catalogue vault were soon removed especially
when dealing with ‘Borderline’ and
his eight minute folk epic ‘Breakfast in
Hell’. As the requests rolled in, favourite songs such as ‘Quick as
Dreams’, ‘Lydia’ and ‘Horses
and Divorces’ rolled out leaving many Slaid fans content that the
unfortunate wrong of missing the city last time had been fully rectified.
Last time Slaid toured the UK he was supporting his latest
record STILL FIGHTING THE WAR and with copies to sell to those who had yet to
buy the record, a number of tracks infiltrated the set with promotional intent.
Amongst these was the fabulous ‘Texas
Love Song’ which proved one of the pivotal high spots on the evening. The
album version featured Terri Hendrix and she was one of many Texas musicians
namechecked during the evening including Don Walser and Ray Wylie Hubbard. Slaid
never fails to relay stories of his long term association with Rod Picott and
two of their most popular co-writes illuminated the opening set in ‘Welding Burns’ and ‘Broke Down’. The latter usually gets its introduction as the song which
lifted Slaid up the inconspicuous ladder of muted fame. Like so many Americana
artists out of Austin, Slaid was quick to be appreciative of the help Bob
Harris had given them to make touring the UK a viable option.
Scrappy Jud’s contribution to the evening ranged from some
serious twang emerging out of his slide acoustic playing to a baritone sound emanating
from his second guitar. He also sang lead vocals on one of his own songs and backed
Slaid on many others. The pair has developed that telepathic intuition required
for a successful duo style and several songs were enhanced with the occasional
fluid lead guitar breaks. Many lauded songs continued to flow from the floor as
we were treated to ‘Cry’, ‘Wishbones’
and another crowd favourite ‘One Good
Year’. Like so many artists operating at this level, there is not a single
shred of indifference to the show, with such humility and gratefulness being a
blessing for performers rich in talent, but forever denied that big break.
Slaid Cleaves is an artist content with his lot and gets much satisfaction in sharing his songs with enthusiastic and dedicated
audiences where compromise is not an option. The songs are a pure poetic
masterpiece of Americana landscape, observation and soul with their author perfectly
at ease in using his gifts to entertain via the fruits of his craft. Tonight
was a reminder that Slaid Cleaves is a sheer classy songwriter and we were
promised no more Birmingham omissions from future tours.
www.slaidcleaves.com