David Mead

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.

Tweet Comments