Live Review Adam Green

The debased but infinitely likeable would-be nightclub-crooner-cum-folk-minstrel-cum-indie-legend captivates The Cockpit

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Live Review: Adam Green

Adam Green is one of those singers who, despite releasing six studio albums and amassing a legion of besotted fans, manages to generally slip under the radar of pop culture. Seeing him in all his glory at a packed Cockpit gig, it becomes clear why.

Green is charismatic, entertaining and droll, and commands the attention of his audience without really seeming to try that hard, being as he is a rather laissez-faire kind of guy (and yes, tres wasted). Yet his style is very, very offbeat, and his lyrics demonstrate why Radio One et al choose not to latch onto him. He is like a disgraced cabaret singer who was banned from playing Vegas, so went it alone to play distasteful and brilliantly offensive songs in seedy underground clubs.

Adam’s eccentricity lends itself well to the rock’n'roll image he clearly wants to project nowadays. It’s a slight move away from his folkier days as one half of The Moldy Peaches, but he does retain folk stylings in much of his music. He rambles fancifully in between songs and regales everyone with an amusing anecdote about his friend Carl Barat’s poor attempt at an American accent.

His blasé but affable manner is endearing when he’s giggling uncontrollably at his mic, throwing some knowingly bad shapes or repeatedly crowd-surfing through his adoring sea of groupies. However, it veers a little towards embarrassing when Adam allows one of said young admirers to get up on stage to kiss him and happily indulges her in a lengthy and passionate scene, for the most part of which no-one is quite sure where to look (he did say earlier that he felt really old in comparison to the ‘practically teenage’ crowd).

Nevertheless, Green has an impressive bass voice. He recalls a darker, grimier, rockier Johnny Cash. Green is supported by his more focused band on bass, lead guitar, drums and keyboard.

‘Emily’ presents itself as a jaunty tribute to girlfriends past. Its lo-fi sound seeks to highlight the intentionally naff format, showing up the fakery of disguising the song’s bitterness as nostalgia. Dating a girl under the age of legal consent is tame subject matter compared to what follows - well he can’t scare people away too soon.

‘No Legs’ is an unabashed ode to, well, god knows. Love? Sex? Religion? In any case, it contains the lewdest of lyrics sung in the sweetest of voices. ‘What a Waster’ is an enjoyable cover of The Libertines’ first single, made more ominous with the tempo taken right down and the altogether more formidable tone of Green’s voice, the element of the duet removed and only a lone guitarist in its place.

Perhaps the most memorable number is ‘Jessica’, Adam’s most renowned track thanks to its deriding of a certain Miss Simpson. Despite completely ridiculing the dim pop vixen for being insincere and vacuous, “Your fraudulent smile / The way that you faked it the day that you died”, the song is actually quite beautiful and there is a certain melancholy in the melodic acoustic guitar and the deceptively concerned way that Green sings.

All of the band join in for the finale of ‘Baby’s Gonna Be Alright’, the most characteristic of cool-New-York-blues-indie. The group dynamic provides a more spirited energy, allowing the others a chance to give it some with lots of drums and bass. The hour-long set has flown by and culminates with much reluctance from both parties; quite something on a Sunday night. Adam Green may be many things, but dull he certainly is not.

Adam Green played the Cockpit on 31st January

Posted on Wednesday 10th February 2010
Rebecca Ryder

You are in: Music » Live Review »Adam Green