Sunday night saw me jump on the Concord v2 for a special night at the Hotel Chelsea. Well not quite but close. Instead it went something like the following. My not so gallant steed for the night (The Pulsar) and I picked up Thor from her house before we headed into The Valley for some pre-show drinks/chatter/random events with Tom. After a name change issued to me on my behalf, it was into The Troubadoure for a night with a theme of the Hotel Chelsea. (side note, The Troubie stamp is pretty cool, if I got tattooed on my wrist, do you think they would give me free entry for life?) Tom Woodward was in town *for one night only!* and along with Ange Takats and Cameron Elliot they were putting on a show at The Troubie. Titled “a night at the Chelsea”, promising me a night of music by three artists inspired by the music scene at the Hotel Chelsea in the late 60’s. The promise was certainly delivered.
Ange Takats
I have been meaning to see Ange live for a couple of months now, the classic myspace syndrome, all these cool local acts and only so many days in a week. She was well worth the wait, as I was in for a treat. She opened the night by singing a song, just singing, no guitar, no backup, just her. Rather impressive. Throughout the night she by far spent the most time up on stage as at some point during the boys sets she provided some backup vocals. She has a tale/song about the curse of knitting for boyfriends who then leave with the knitted goods (the word on the street is that to stop this happening that you need to marry said boyfriend and then give knitted goods). That got a gold star in my book.
Tom Woodward
Well there was that rather very interesting guitar tuning interlude. There were a handful of new songs. There was “my song” (publicly known as Reminding me of Your) played in the December 07 style rather than the August 07 style, which is a bpm increase of oh about 60% and a much edgier sound, very different and I don’t know which version I prefer. It was top shelf stuff, could it have been any less? (that answer is most definitely no). I can’t yet offer any soundbites/textbites for the new songs though. Other than that that there is a video clip for one of the new songs at the end of this post. Press that play button!
Cameron Elliot
I didn’t get to *really* hear much of Cam’s set as I was chatting up the back. Which means that I can’t really offer any profound or non profound as the case often is about Cam’s music other to say that I did quite enjoy what I heard though and will be keeping track of him. Cam was the Tom Waits or perhaps the Leonard Cohen of the night, he was one of those two as Tom was the Bob Dylan and Ange was the Joan Baez/Joni Mitchell.
After the “solo” sets were over they got together for some good old fashioned supergroup fun. One of which was of course I shall be released and there was another really great tune they did which I can’t recall at the moment.
Then some time later the music ended. some time after that the night ended with this. Tom and Thor on the footpath. In the light of a streetlight.
I almost forgot, a Troubie shot 😀
