04 November 2011
An atmosphere of quiet anticipation filled the small venue of the Workmans Club for the visit of Richmond Fontaine. As well as CDs, singer Willy Vlautin’s novels adorned the merchandise desk.
Support act the Gandhis is the new band of ex-Thrills singer Conor Deasy and they played a decent brand of folk-rock with sweet harmonies. After a version of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, they played the wonderfully-titled Ballad of a Hard Drinking Bad Tempered Woman, which was, as they described, a ‘hoedown’. Deasy was a little prone to vocal histrionics, but the band displayed a mastery of harmonies (though one track evoked the Flying Pickets), and the playing was, well, thrilling.
Richmond Fontaine began their set by playing virtually all of recent album/novel ‘The High Country’ in its entirety. It’s a brave album, if a little grim, and so it proved live. The band, joined by Amy Boone of the Damnations to play the female role, played with real sensitivity on the quieter numbers but also let rip with intensity on heavier tracks like Angus King Tries To Leave The House and Lost in the Trees, which bear little relation to the alternative country of Post to Wire with which they made their name. There’s no place for sentimental steel guitar. Most of the songs chronicle real desperation, and with panic in their eyes, the band played them like their life depended on them.
The tension was lifted by Driving Back to the Chainsaw Sea, where the band performed some cheesy country logging anthems (if you’ve heard the album this will make sense) before returning to the murder and mayhem of the rest of the album.
They returned to play a selection of their back catalogue, covering 1968 (from their debut) through Northline, one of the high points of the night, before finishing with Western Skyline.
You don’t just listen to these songs, you cling to them to get you through the night. Richmond Fontaine’s refusal to compromise or do the expected has made them one of America’s more interesting bands. They are songs of quiet despair. The sound of biting your lip till it bleeds. Whoever thought it could work so well.
Killian Laher.
<a href=”http://richmondfontaine.bandcamp.com/album/the-high-country” _mce_href=”http://richmondfontaine.bandcamp.com/album/the-high-country”>The High Country by Richmond Fontaine</a>
