Tom Gourley @ Royal Park Cellars
By Sam Saunders
A very full and very buzzing Royal Park Cellars had one hell of a night on Wednesday.
Agent provocateur Thomas R. Gourley rightly claimed the headline spot, choking up fiercely loud and wonderfully free guitar against a versatile and compelling voice. He comes at the audience with a pent up anger at the blandness of NME style "wock" and tells us "This is a night about song writing. I'd like to see the Von Bondies do a song solo and make it stick" . He flings his stuff against the back wall, and it does some damage. The wall, just about, and the songs, very definitely, stay upright throughout.
Swapping between two classic electric guitars, he regurgitates riffs and chords and decorative lines whenever it sounds right. They serve the songs, they don't define or constrain them. Mumbling like a Lour Reed, or swooping about like a choir boy he can sing for England anytime he wants. He really stirs things up, and pours so much invention and variety into that stark framework, that I know I'll have to see him again soon. I'm too bewildered to take it all in, and my ears are ringing with the volume. There's one stand out song that uses all his moves - its "a song for Bruce Renshaw", but maybe not called that. It is epic. And just when it couldn't get any better he slips in that astonishing falsetto that send the pitch up a couple of octaves without losing a shred of colour. Seek him out.
Benjamin Wetherill set the seriously professional tone with his neatly dressed set. The brown shoes, the striped suit trousers, the shirt and tie. The combed-back hair. His songs are done in a feathered lightness, with a precise and deliberate voice. They have a French chanson quality and a hint of the Noel Coward about them. Benjamin's previous life might have been serenading rich young virgins on ocean liners in the 1920s. He's so earnest and so sincere about it, though, it's a joy - definitely not a joke. His jazz guitar is dextrous and jaunty - only once launching into something meatier and sexier. There's a strong bass line from that trusty right thumb, and confidently fingered arpeggios make each of the songs dance. The audience are captivated and cheer like mad people being mad.
Louise Dal had come, at Tom Gourley's invitation, all the way from Denmark (albeit via Leeds and more recently Newcastle). Her performance is super-confident and luminous. She has a belting voice, and lets it rip on a set of very well made songs. She ain't no blushing maiden, neither. "I do this one when I'm busking" she confides - and then sings about shooting, running over and (well ... I was cowering by this stage ...something) a dodgy boyfriend. She has a very strong stage presence - and makes another Leeds appearance on July 3rd at the Vine with band Columbia Drive. Don't miss it.
The tricky opening spot was done by the craftsman singer-songwriter Fran Rodgers, denizen of The Grove. Fran is a pro in this acoustic guitar, "night about songs" game. She shifts between her own songs and some deft Joan Baez/Jonie Mitchell material. There's an electric piano song too. My personal favourite is the very true-sounding "So Out of Time With You" - an honest and engaging song about being a writer in the long long shadows cast by the greats. She sings with passion and grace. She is a talent.
