King Creosote NNF 2024
No one seemed more surprised than Kenny Anderson that he was performing in a building he had previously visited for spiritual comfort, and with the recently restored organ serving as an illuminated backdrop, there's no denying the dramatic impact of gigging in such a glorious setting
N&N Festival
With St Andrews Hall closed for refurbishment, there must have been long, hard debates about the festival's commitment to contemporary music. Where, in short, do you put a band with a fan base that exceeds the capacity of the Spiegeltent? I would have thought Epic Studios the obvious answer, but surprisingly, in all sorts of ways, it was the Cathedral that hosted King Creosote. No one seemed more surprised than Kenny Anderson that he was performing in a building he had previously visited for spiritual comfort, and with the recently restored organ serving as an illuminated backdrop, there's no denying the dramatic impact of gigging in such a glorious setting. No denying the challenges too, but we will come to those later.
I had half expected to be confronted by a bare alter, in front of which Anderson would accompany himself on an acoustic guitar, his melancholy beautiful vocals drifting up to the heavens. Instead, a purpose build stage, laden with all manner of synthesisers and electronic gear promised a very different evening to the one I expected. Anderson's band took to the stage one by one, adding layer upon layer of drone, as a palpable feeling of expectation grew. When the man himself finally appeared it was, however, the same old Kenny, complete with scruffy beard, a loose-fitting t-shirt, an acoustic guitar and a winning smile.
What followed was the first half of his new album, featuring no less than three songs about death. ‘Dust’, ‘Blue Marbled Elm Trees’ and ‘Burial’ all offered ample confirmation that praise for 'I DES' is well deserved, but to find out what he was actually singing about required explanation, his delicate vocals having been all but entirely obscured by the ear splitting volume of everything else on stage. The Cathedral, in case anyone hasn't noticed this, is a long, thin building with a very high ceiling. With seating for this sell out concert going back as far as the eye could see, I can only surmise it was felt necessary to turn the volume up to eleven in order to reach all corners. The consequence for those unhappy few towards the front was a ringing in the ears I last experienced at a Motorhead concert. To my mind, this profoundly misunderstood the acoustics of a building that has happily hosted concerts of unamplified sound and marred what should have been an fine night out.
Thankfully, things did get better, particularly when his fellow band members took a break, leaving him with only keyboard accompanying his guitar and vocals. A run through of the back catalogue followed, with ‘Comfort in Rum’ a particular highlight, before his pals returned to finish what they started, a complete run of the new stuff. It was a bold move to devote so much of the evening to new material but, having thankfully turned down the volume just a tad, I was better able to appreciate the only banger of the night - his words not mine – ‘Susie Mullen’, and his personal favourite, the cheekily titled ‘Please Come Back, I will Listen, I will Behave, I Will Toe the Line’.
Along the way we got some terrible chat - again, his words, not mine - bird impressions and a shout out to his wife and occasional lyricist, HMS Ginafore, before closing on the first of his many failed attempts at a hit record. Need I say that this too, is his description of So Forlorn?
