22 Dec 2024
UsernamePassword

Remember Me? | Join | Recover
Click here to sign in via social networking

Miles Calder - Gig Review: Miles Calder @ Wine Cellar, Auckland - 2/07/2022

03 Jul 2022 // A review by roger.bowie

There’s a warm and welcoming atmosphere tonight in the Wine Cellar. It seems to be lighter along with the mood.

Miles Calder is trekking the country on his own, at least tonight, as long-time band member and guitarist extraordinaire Chris Armour has been sick and so the acoustic tour is truly acoustic, except Miles has a plan B, and that is Finn Johannson, who is also opening the show.

Miles has been busy enough (apart from the day job) and releasing singles is the modus operandi at the moment, especially as he now has studio time with Sam Scott producing, a development he describes as exciting and edgy, Sam taking him to places he doesn’t expect.

And who else is there to add to the mix, already shaping up as delightfully informal, but one Christopher Dent, aka Albi, along for the ride to support his flatmate Finn on a few songs. Turns out Finn has moved up from Wellington to study gaming, and so it’s an easy thing to do to ask your flatmate to come along and improvise.

Finn is very relaxed tonight, verrrrrry relaxxxxed, and a little frisky behind his beer. “Sometimes a mountain is just a mountain, and a river is just a river” ….. but sometimes they are not, is the first song.

Finn plays some alt folk kind of stuff, dark, and Chris softens with sweet harmonies, and  a “who am I?” song about Shituations  which is also a great name for a song, four new songs none of which are Things that I forgot about  played live for the first time, part tragedy, part comedy, psychedelic pathos, and Chris retires, and we get Maybe  and somewhere in here is a  bottle opener and a six pack, and a broken string, and a lost capo, and a cry for Rohan to help, and Rohan does, and Finn switches to micro keyboard, and sounds like Badly Drawn Boy meets Randy Newman. And ends with If This is Love, sung with uninhibited passion and we are with Finn on his journey to somewhere with a sense of even better to come.

Finn Johannson setlist:

1. Mountain
2. 
You Look Down on Me
3. 
Shituations
4. 
There Were Things that I Forgot About
5. 
Maybe
6. 
Bottle Opener Dog
7. 
6 Pack
8. 
If this is Love

Miles Calder steps up solo, stripped back, and sets off with a Workman Song, we’ve heard this before, but now a single, and inspired by someone he met in the States with this very name, and a little Dylan like rambling blues, and we are eased into the Miles Calder voice, like an easy everyman. A touch of Lennon, but also many more. Easy, silky, soft, touching from a distance, tremors on the heartstrings of life, and there’s the temptation of Greener Grass  always on the other side, a sense of addiction to cathartic release (maybe that’s what Finn is doing), but reality sets in at some regional airport, and then a new song about Living Alone  which evokes Lennon Beatles, but then it’s an Autopilot Life  the title song from the last album before we get an unexpected treat (to add to the expected ones) and a little Townes Van Zandt with No Place to Fall, which was the essence of Townes’ tragedy. And to close the opening set, another new song, a Real Connection, and as I close my eyes to listen, I can hear all four of the Traveling Wilburys' Vol 3, such is the diversity of his tone, and of course Vol 3 is without the late Roy, and I can’t find him, but the remaining four is not too shabby, I’m sure you will agree. Sam Scott is indeed bringing a sense of adventure to the boy.

A short break.

Finn Johannson is wearing a Dolly Parton T-shirt, and looking even more frisky, and just having a good time, and it’s refreshing, it’s almost unwoke, which is a tragedy to say, but as he joins Miles on stage for the second set, he brings a rock ‘n’ roll presence to the acoustic sedation and it’s just so much fun. We’re immediately Lost in a Dream and the reason Finn is there is immediately apparent with an eclectic and iconoclastic guitar which levitates the night to another stratosphere. Is he shit-faced? Who cares? No-one gets shot, no-one gets hurt, and in truth everyone joins in with the ebullience of the occasion and, shit, Isn’t that Better ? Outrageous guitar. And if at times it might seem like Finn is upstaging, it’s tempered by the fact that even Rohan joins in with the banter, the normally quiet, reserved and anonymous Rohan, our Wine Cellar host, and Miles is graciously complicit, and Lake Geneva rises over him and almost swamps, but no, the reason we are here is because Miles Calder writes amazing songs, and sings them amazingly well, and the fact that what might have been a more stripped back and solemn representation of these songs is hijacked by an eclectic guitar and a rock n roll hedonism in no way detracts from the talent of this man, one of our more underestimated and unheralded talents, and, there are too many words in this sentence but it’s just so much fun.

Pushing and Pulling  is another new release, and I rest my case, and the audience agrees.

And the now fashionable encore in advance is enhanced by a request from the audience, someone in the know, to play that Bob Dylan song that Miles can’t remember until he plays it, and Tom Thumb’s Blues  is a fitting conclusion to a very special night.

The problem is, you don’t get to experience these special moments unless you go. Or, in other words, if you make an effort, you get lucky. And I am so lucky I chose to go down to the Wine Cellar, on this night, and experience the magic of an unscripted night. Who cares about the rugby……

My last thought is that we haven’t yet seen the best of Miles Calder. I think the best is yet to come.

Miles Calder setlist:

1. Workman’s Song
2. 
Greener Grass
3. 
Living Alone
4. 
Autopilot Life
5. 
No Place to Fall (Townes Van Zandt)
6. 
Real Connection
7. 
Lost in a Dream
8. 
Take Me Back to How it Works
9. 
Isn’t That Better
10. 
Lake Geneva
11. 
Bad For Me 
12. 
Pushing and Pulling
13. 
Tom Thumb's Blues

 

About Miles Calder

Miles Calder has been busy waking up from unconscious monotony and has a striking new single to show for it. Almost four years since the folk-tinged releases as Miles Calder & The Rumours and his time living in New York City and Geneva, Miles has emerged with a revived sound and a new band. His new sound evokes early-70's Lennon as much as contemporaries like Kevin Morby and Father John Misty.




Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Miles Calder

Releases

Autopilot Life
Year: 2021
Type: Album
Miles Calder & The Rumours
Year: 2016
Type: Album
The Crossing Over
Year: 2013
Type: Album

Other Reviews By roger.bowie

Album Review: Subset BC
16 Dec 2023 // by roger.bowie
Here’s an interesting little thing from Gisborne. A funky little band with three bass players.
Read More...
Gig Review: The Best of Come Together @ The Civic Theatre, Auckland - 9/12/2023
12 Dec 2023 // by roger.bowie
Get your heads around this line-up:  The singers: Jon Toogood, (lead and backing vocals), Julia Deans (lead and backing vocals), Dianne Swann (lead and backing vocals and occasional guitar), Samuel Flynn Scott (vocals and guitar), James Milne (lead and backing vocals), Milan Borich (Mick vocals) The players: Jol Mulholland (guitars and vocals), Brett Adams (lead guitar and vocals), Mike Hall (bass), Matthias Jordan (keyboards), Alastair Deverick (drums), Finn Scholes (trumpet, clarinet and percussion), Nick Atkinson (sax and percussion).  Stopped spinning?
Read More...
A Crude Mechanical - Album Review: Discourse
08 Dec 2023 // by roger.bowie
Shane Warbrooke doesn’t believe in lyrics, because of the risk of lyrics being hi-jacked and meanings bent to suit ideologies which he doesn’t like. Well, such ideologies which most of us don’t like, truth be known, but then again, Beethoven didn’t write lyrics, so the freedom of speech counter argument only goes so far.
Read More...
Gig Review: The Phoenix Foundation @ Hollywood Avondale, Auckland - 24/11/2023
26 Nov 2023 // by roger.bowie
This is a first of many things. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen The Phoenix Foundation play live.
Read More...
Velvet Arrow - Album Review: Songs of Solitude
17 Nov 2023 // by roger.bowie
A Song Of Hope & Fear would normally be a contradiction in terms unless darkness prevails and light shines through, which is an appropriate metaphor for the debut album from Whangarei’s Velvet Arrow and the opening song, with Dan Stenhouse’s husky voice helping us through the night against a ghostly horror wail from Hannah Jane. After all it’s just a song to help you through the night, just the words that speak, it’s not real.
Read More...
Gig Review: Atomic: Women of Rock @ The Civic, Auckland - 11/11/2023
13 Nov 2023 // by roger.bowie
What a feast of nostalgia we’ve had from Liberty Stage (Simone Williams) these past few years, as New Zealand’s finest have Come Together to cover the classic albums which made the soundtracks of our youth. In addition to this, there have also been special tributes like Tami Neilson’s rock ‘n roll party with Dinah Lee, just last month.
Read More...
Dimmer - Album Review: Live At The Hollywood
09 Nov 2023 // by roger.bowie
Wow, not very often that we see alive album these days, an unusual beast, but that’s we have, a 14-track monster from Dimmer, recorded from last year’s sold-out trilogy at the Hollywood Avondale. Which, if you didn’t get to go last year, you can still see on December 2nd at the Powerstation, unless, like me, you are going instead to The War on Drugs.
Read More...
Killergrams - EP Review: Lonely Nights In A Little Town
27 Oct 2023 // by roger.bowie
Someone walked out, and Tom Maxwell has lost his mind, in a gentle, acoustic way. Then his mind explodes in a cacophony of chaos, which might just be what it feels like, losing something that important.
Read More...
View All Articles By roger.bowie

NZ Top 10 Singles

  • APT.
    ROSÉ And Bruno Mars
  • DIE WITH A SMILE
    Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars
  • BIRDS OF A FEATHER
    Billie Eilish
  • TASTE
    Sabrina Carpenter
  • I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
    Gracie Abrams
  • ESPRESSO
    Sabrina Carpenter
  • SAILOR SONG
    Gigi Perez
  • LOSE CONTROL
    Teddy Swims
  • A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
    Shaboozey
  • GOOD LUCK, BABE!
    Chappell Roan
View the Full NZ Top 40...
muzic.net.nz Logo
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report a ProblemReport A Problem