A new look and new vibe for Grant-Lee Phillips at this pared-back performance, part of the Celtic Connections festival that takes over Glasgow for a couple of weeks every January and February. The fresh vibe was due to this being Phillips first tour entirely seated, as he put it, sitting down and armed only with an acoustic guitar, while the 62-year-old is now more hirsute, having grown a beard.
There was little else beyond simple performance here, for Cottiers' converted church setting does not exactly lend itself to any onstage gimmicks. If the plastic chairs of the auditorium gave it all somewhat of a school assembly feel, it meant the focus remained on Phillips and before him support act Niamh Corkey - a folk singer with a tender vocal who made the most of her half-hour set.
A fragile touch was present in some of her melodies, as if an errant breath in the audience might crack them apart, and her skill in weaving such delicate tunes suggested a name to watch out for.
Phillips himself suits such a setting, both in his songs and in how it lets him drop wry humour into the set from time to time. There was discussion of his recurring role as the town troubadour on the Gilmore Girls TV show, where he drily recalled getting to perform while leaning against different things. “The leaning Gary Oldman”, as he described himself, while there were plenty of laughs from the audience following a reference to checking his phone in bed "to make sure the world is all right". Admittedly the warmth from the Glasgow crowd towards him suggested he could list off his dinner ingredients and still have some chuckling away.
Reality has a way of intruding on things, though, even humour. The opening “Little Men” was peppered with references to the right to be free, a belief that increasingly seems less certain given world events, and Phillips voice infused it with a melancholy, yet still optimistic tone. It was followed by “She Knows Me”, a love song that reaffirmed how good he is at writing about matters of the heart. It is a subject he has been skilled at for years, as a run-through of his old band’s sweet and witty “Honey Don’t Think” and the understated charm of “The Hook” evidenced later on.
While there were a handful of other Grant Lee Buffalo songs scattered throughout the 80-minute set, the majority came from his solo records, and last year’s “In The Hour of Dust” in particular. Those rootsy selections were enjoyable, including a rolling, foot tapping “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay”, a title lifted from a Muskogee (Creek) Nation saying that takes the place of saying good morning, and a powerful “Last Corner of the Earth” that wrapped up the main set on a strident note.
It was unflashy stuff, whether he was touching on his home life or matters of wider significance, yet he tells these tales well, and with conviction. It stayed that way through to the encore’s “Fuzzy”, here stripped of its alt rock trappings, while still retaining a hazy, dreamy vocal. The times pass by and the styles may change, but Phillips ability to pen a fine song remains thankfully consistent.
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