| An Evening With ANDREW MCMAHON... |
| Written by Katie Lock | ||||||||
| Sunday, 27 February 2011 09:03 | ||||||||
An Evening With Andrew McMahon...
February 13th, 2011. The Hi-Fi, Melbourne, Australia. Everybody has a hero. For myself and many other music lovers, that hero is the one and only, ANDREW MCMAHON. Best known for his endeavours as lead singer/pianist for piano-rock bands JACK'S MANNEQUIN and SOMETHING CORPORATE, he took his infamous 'An Evening With Andrew McMahon' solo show for a string of intimate Australian dates. I had the pleasure to attend the Melbourne date, and my-oh-my, was it a pleasure. Ninety minutes of just Andrew and his piano, along with his sidekick Bobby “Raw” Anderson supporting on acoustic guitar. A dream come true for those in attendance - especially for myself - considering the chance of Andrew ever coming to New Zealand with Jack's Mannequin or solo, are pretty much zilch. Not a fun statistic for one of your favourite musicians ever, right? Thankfully a hop across the ditch isn't that far!
The crowd's ears were warmed up for the evening by local singer-songwriter LEENA, who was delightful. Her short thirty-minute set was full of catchy ballads and tunes, and she managed to charm the audience well. Not unlike Andrew himself, she successfully accompanied herself on keyboard and guitar, along with telling stories between songs - such as how her keyboard stand collapsed mid-song in Sydney the previous night. The beginning of Andrew's Melbourne set can be summed up in two words: hilariously perfect. With a beer in hand, McMahon walked on stage alone to great applause to tell us that he would be opening with a song about his piano - which ironically, he wasn't playing on that night. The opening lines of 'Hammers and Strings' are absolute perfection. However, a mere two lines in, a holler along the lines of “woooooo go Andrew!” resulted in him losing his concentration and breaking into laughter. Now, this may be frowned upon as unprofessional by some, but the audience laughed along as it added to the intimate environment of the show.
Throughout the night, Andrew and Bobby played a number of songs spanning their musical careers, including Jack's Mannequin hits 'Dark Blue', 'The Resolution', 'Swim' and 'The Mixed Tape'. We also had a taste of some classic Something Corporate songs such as 'Punk Rock Princess', along with an Elton John cover 'Rocket Man', the song 'Olive' (written and sung by Bobby), and a sneak peek at what's coming from the new Jack's Mannequin album with the song 'Restless Dreaming'. While a small ensemble, the duo managed to grasp a range of the audience's emotions with all of the power that a full-band set would have, capturing our undivided attention during ballads like 'Cavanaugh Park', yet managing to have the whole room singing with 'La La Lie'. Not a bad effort at all.
Besides a polished performance covering a decade's worth of wonderful music, Andrew also brought great humour to the show. It seemed each song had it's own story expanding further from the lyrics themselves, stories that he seemed to love to tell. We were told of how 'She Paints Me Blue' was about when Andrew moved out of home and had only a blue lightbulb in his bedroom, and of how 'Swim' sums up the album 'The Glass Passenger' and of how it captured the general shittiness his life had been during his battle with Leukemia. The room ventured from purely being a stage and audience, to a room full of friends there to celebrate the music. We laughed at the jokes and stories, sung along, and even joked back with Andrew. One dude further back in the crowd did learn one lesson about an Andrew show for himself - don't ask him to play 'Konstantine', ever. However by the end of the night, Andrew declared we were his favourite Australian crowd so far, due to our lack of 'Konstantine'-heckling and all-round awesomeness. Being there felt like being a part of something very special, and it's no wonder - Andrew McMahon is one heck of a special and talented man. What a show!
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