Red Bowler 2024
Aylesbury alchemist takes to the stage after stage to mystify his followers time and again.
The Set Remains The Same:
Live
English fans singing “Otway, Otway, Otway” to the tune of “Olé, Olé, Olé”: given the status of football in Old Blighty, such sacrilege speaks volumes of public love for this man – but then, over the course of forty-odd years, he became a national treasure worthy of waiving the rules and ruling the waves. Still, the temporal concept doesn’t mean too much to John, although the veteran is eager to stress the fact of his new concert album being the first live release in a few decades, and fifteen cuts on offer here testify to that. Spanning three decades, from 1993 to 2023, without showing any lapse in the levels of energy he can muster to bring the mystery of song out of the shadows, they can puzzle the listener, because back in 2000 the British musician issued a studio platter titled “The Set Remains The Same” which included a few fresh takes on his classic numbers. And now John Otway culls salient performances from various venues to partially reproduce it and flesh out the familiar repertoire with less known pieces.
It may feel easy to have a dedicated audience eat out of his hand at Abbey Road with a tremendously histrionic, albeit history-respecting, delivery of “House Of The Rising Sun” that triumphantly, in a call-and-response way, closes this comp, yet having Glastonbury multitudes sway to a robust romp through “Bluey Green” is no mean feat – only Otway’s working both types of crowd with equal elegance and aplomb. Of course, the punters also find it easy to tap into the spirit of punk via John’s blistering, spectators-teasing attack on his early single “Really Free” that opens this disc, while the joyous “Beware Of The Flowers” chugs along just as agitatedly, but there’s also vibrant romanticism in “Josephine” and “Geneve” to render the two acoustically directed serenades truly transcendental. And if the much heavier, riff-driven “Seagulls On Speed” and “We Rock” reveal a rarely glimpsed aggressive aspect of the artist’s approach to his craft, Otway, aided and abetted at various moments by Murray Torkildsen and Richard Holgarth’s guitars, will go for a blissed-out rave on “Bunsen Burner” and for a ska-fest on “Louisa On A Horse” to keep things balanced. John can get “Can’t Complain” to host Seymour Fluid’s impressive bass solo as a complement to his effusive vocals, and allow the anthemic “I Shouldn’t Be Doing This” to embrace Adam Batterbee’s vigorous drumming; however, at the end of the day, his talents as singer-songwriter are the sole factors which make any context of Otway’s songs special.
A treasure trove, indeed.
*****
