(((O))) : Live: Daughn Gibson, Brokeback & May He Go – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh. November 26th, 2013.

It’s November in Scotland, it’s cold and it’s raining. I’m here to see Brokeback. Technically, it’s not their show – the headliner is Daughn Gibson – but, hey, I like Brokeback.

So, anyway, here I am. The guy on the door is unreasonably excited. ‘Do you know the support band?’, he asks me. ‘Brokeback!’ he says. He has, apparently, been a big Tortoise fan¹ for years, and Doug McCombs from that band plays in Brokeback. ‘Never thought I’d see a member of Tortoise playing here!’

Well, nor me.

But first, fresh-faced young locals May He Go step up. One chap, two young ladies and a laptop. It is, I think, their first proper gig together, and they look nervous and a bit awkward. Unsurprising, really, as there are exactly three people watching. The inevitable fate of the unknown local support. Still, they forge ahead regardless with a pleasingly perky set of catchy danceable songs, intriguingly blending 80s style new romanticism with something close to mathy post-rock.

Brokeback returned, rebuilt and reformed after a ten year hiatus, with 2013’s Brokeback and the Black Rock, and tonight’s set is drawn almost entirely from that very fine album. They state, in their Facebook bio, that they laboured long and hard perfecting those songs, working out every detail, every arrangement. When they play tonight, however, it all seems entirely effortless. Hard work paying off, perhaps, or maybe just supreme confidence?

They open with ‘Will Be Arriving’, and instantly I’m removed from cold, wet Edinburgh and taken to a desert in America somewhere, Arizona or Montana, to heat and dust and endless open space. I can close my eyes and imagine a vast blue, blue sky, with buzzards. Saguaro cactus. Scorpions, and rattlesnakes basking in the heat. Coyotes. Reverb soaked guitars shimmer like heat haze on the horizon.²

They play, amongst others and in no particular order, ‘The Wire, The Rag and The Pay’, ‘Who Is Bozo Texino?’, ‘Tonight at Ten’ and its partner, ‘Tonight at Eleven’. There are a couple of songs I don’t know, either new or very old. Y’know, sometimes, when a band plays a song you don’t know in amongst a set of favourites, it can jar a bit and interrupt the flow, but not here, tonight. It’s all seamless.

There’s no flashy rock’n’roll nonsense on stage, no posing or jolly banter. It’s just the songs. Just the songs and four utterly unpretentious guys. The bass and drums are a solid, unfussy and unobtrusive canvas upon which the two guitars paint the pictures. At times, the guitar sound reminds me of Tom Verlaine (and I know that I’m not the first to mention that, but it’s true), sometimes there’s even a Hank Marvin twang, a bit of Billy Gibbons’ sleepy blues. Maybe even a touch of Dave Gilmour. But always Brokeback. Always a joy.

They don’t play long enough.

So. Daughn Gibson. I know next to nothing about Daughn Gibson, other than that he’s some kind of ‘country’ singer, and I really don’t like country music. But hey, I’m here, so I’ll give it a go. My expectations are not high, I admit.

Gibson is an imposing figure, tall, dark, unshaven³, and takes the stage accompanied by Brokeback’s drummer and guitarist. He isn’t wearing a Stetson and isn’t carrying an acoustic guitar. He operates a laptop and a box of samples. The most ‘country’ thing about him is his very distressed Garth Brooks t-shirt. And then he sings. Crikey.

Gibson has a fabulous, rich baritone voice. He sounds like a blend of Elvis, Jim Morrison, Glen Danzig (yes, really), Nick Cave and him from the Sisters of Mercy. His songs are, without a doubt, rooted in trucker country, but his voice lends them a rockier, almost gothic tone. His borrowed band are allowed to kick their heels up a bit more than they do in Brokeback, and Chris Hansen on guitar gets to play with his lap steel, an instrument which I usually despise. But tonight it’s good, dammit!

I don’t know the songs, only recognising a couple from my brief YouTube research – ‘Kissin’ On The Blacktop’ and ‘You Don’t Fade’ – but it’s all great stuff. I’m impressed. Towards the end, one of the songs – don’t ask me what it’s called – even turns into a lengthy, spacey jam of drums, lap steel and samples. It could be Hawkwind, or Earthless if they played songs less than 25 minutes long.

Well, there you go. Expectations confounded. Which is nice.

Promising youngsters, blissful desert blues and sexy goth-country. I’m off home, happy.

Bugger. It’s still raining.

Footnotes:

1. That is, a big fan of the band Tortoise, not a fan of big tortoises. (But maybe that too. Who knows?)
2. Which is all very odd, because they’re from Chicago.
3. And he has really big feet.