LIVE REVIEW: GRAHAM COXON

GRAHAM COXON
LONDON CAMDEN ROUNDHOUSE
JULY 23 2009

With a couple of sold out Hyde Park shows, a Glastonbury headline and sundry other massive gigs already under his belt, you’d forgive Graham Coxon for spending the rest of the summer sitting back and counting his money.

Love or loathe him, there’s no denying the Blur guitarist is someone who likes to get out on a stage and play, and there’s a certain bravery to him testing out his new folk direction on a few thousand or so iTunes competition winners who‘d probably rather be spilling their lager to ‘Girls and Boys’ and ‘Parklife’. There’s a certain restlessness among the full Roundhouse early on, as Coxon sits down and out of most people’s view and picks his way through a succession of hushed Nick Drake-inspired songs on an acoustic.

He mumbles inaudible greetings into the microphone, something onstage starts feeding back awfully, and for a moment the sound of talking threatens to overwhelm the fragile sound. But as bassist Gareth Huw Davies, best known for his work on all three of R.O.C.'s albums to date, and drummer Graham Fox begin to get more involved, the crowd steadily warms to their understated but often infectious sound.

There are a few (vaguely) rowdier diversions, where the self-styled Power Trio do the full on fuzzbox overdrive of Dinosaur Jr or reference psychedelic space rock ghosts of the Roundhouse’s former life like Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. But the main offering remains Coxon’s quirky take on late 60s/early 70s folk, heavily influenced by Drake, Syd Barrett and Robert Wyatt.

That said, the shambling but emotionally engaging delivery and ability to pen a memorable, fresh tune are all his. Once the audience begins to cheer, clap and hoist their mobiles skywards he seems to emerge from his shell, step up to the microphone and establish a decent raport. So by the time they reach the hypnotic, harmonium-led set closer ‘November’



it feels like a shaky start has been turned into a triumph. A triumph on Coxon’s terms, too, which after the surefire safety of the Blur reunion, must feel pretty good.

Ben Willmott