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As people walked into the Studio Theatre in the
Warwick Arts Centre, Nick Drake's magnificent album
Bryter Layter was playing over the PA system. If
there was ever a good omen for a gig, this was indeed
it. The word on David Mead was that, according to the
quotes, he was "the David Gray it's OK to like" and
"Jeff Buckley for The Corrs generation".
Certainly
David Gray is not nearly as cool to like now as he was
a couple of years ago when no-one knew who he was, so
the first comment is definitely very positive. But
Jeff Buckley via The Corrs? Well, I'm not sure sure
about that one...
Supporting Mead tonight was the sprite-like Pina,
newly signed to Peter Gabriel's Real World label.
Coming from Austria via county Cork (!), she sang
songs that were for the most part deeply personal.
She introduced one saying, "This is a song I
wrote two days after my husband left me". Alone on
stage with just an acoustic guitar, what came across
most forcefully was her voice, an unusual mix of
breathy and gritty, occasionally slipping into a
banshee howl. Her songs did not come across well live,
but it will be interesting to listen to her debut
album Quick Look.
As for Mead, the main man of the night, I have to
admit I came away slightly disappointed that it hadn't
been him that'd been doing an acoustic set tonight.
Playing songs from his 1999 debut The Luxury of Time
and his soon to be re-released second album 'Mine and
Yours', he showed himself to be a very fine showman.
Based in New York, he's smart, witty and immediately
likeable - everything you'd expect of a young
good-looking singer songwriter.
The crowd of 150 or
so in the studio seemed predominantly middle-class and
middle-aged, no doubt a result of Mead's current
single, the excellent Comfort, having been
playlisted on both BBC Radio 2 and Virgin Radio. They loved
what he had to offer, pop songs in the classic mould,
big and loud enough to make you come away feeling
you've been rocked, but still quiet enough that your
ears don't ring afterwards.
His songs are just as
likeable as the man, and each song has something
memorable about it, but it doesn't feel like he's
really stretching himself. When David Gray plays live
he puts everything into his songs and there is a magic
about his music. With David Mead, he is as good as one
can get without having that 'something' that makes a
person special.
However, for everyone there, the
undoubted glimpse of that elusive magic was seen when
the bassist and the drummer left the stage and Mead
stood there alone, a man putting himself across with a
guitar and a voice that, raised in song, is sometimes
indeed reminiscent of Jeff Buckley. With his songs
stripped down, Mead is at his very best. While I
dream of an acoustic album being his next project, the
likelihood of this is very slim.
At the moment, he is loved by the middle-aged and the
middle class, yet making music that is not as good as
he can make it. If he could only leave the middle of
the road for a bit, David Mead could shed his cocoon
and become something very special indeed.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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