John Murry

John Murry

Sep 20

John Murry [Isn’t] Dead (but alive and well and playing Glasgow)

Where: Broadcast
When: 18 September 2017
Support: Nadine Khouri

The Graceless Age was one of the best albums of 2013 but tonight John Murry, naturally, focuses on its follow-up, the excellent recently released A Short History Of Decay – all of whose ditties get an outing. Murry (voc/gui) is generously supported by a four-piece band most of whom are multi-instrumentalists (the exception, at least tonight, was the pedal steel player) so that we get the unusual sight of a band this size coming onto a small stage with two drum kits and two sets of keyboards. But of course, the focus is Murry who is in good voice and utterly mesmerising. If you like your music dark, raw, lyrically poetic and delivered in broody baritone this was the place to be.

Several of the new songs sounded even better live, such as ‘Under A Darker Moon’ which started like Grandaddy’s ‘Hewlett’s Daughter‘ but then moved into an almost Springsteen ‘Point Blank ’ mode, and made me fall even more in love with those songs and made me want to spend more time with the new album – which is surely a good outcome for any live set. The sound tonight also reminded me of an excellent Strand Of Oaks gig I saw when they were promoting the woefully under-appreciated Heal, even if Timothy Showalter’s live energy is an entirely beast to Murry’s. The main set ended with the unique, peerless ‘Little Coloured Ballons’ (see sample video below) – bizarrely, given that Murry is such a master craftsman lyricist (who somehow makes his often nihilistic songs also  romantic, in that south of Mississippi way, and hopeful), it was stripped of many of its words although the almost overwhelming raw emotion remained.

As the second half of the set wore on it seemed to me that Murrry’s inner Neil Young was coming more to the fore so perhaps it should not have been a surprise when the first encore was a jam-heavy cover of ‘Cortez The Killer’. The main set had also included two covers Murry has recorded (Peter Gabriel ’s ‘Intruder’ and ‘What Jail Is Like’ by The Afghan Whigs) and we got two more for the second encore (Townes Van Zandt and The Rolling Stones at their most foul-mouthed). It was a great gig that had the audience transfixed – John Murry’s intensity as both a live and recording artist is second to none, as tonight testified.

Band page
Sample video