ATP! Live Review: City and Colour - Bush Hall (London, UK)
When Dallas Green began his City and Colour side-project the best part of a decade ago, we were all won over by the beauty of his voice and simple acoustic songs. The project was the perfect conduit for the softer side not adequately showcased in Alexisonfire.
Almost ten years later and City and Colour has completely outgrown Alexisonfire to become a full-band entity of its own. Green has just released The Hurry and the Harm - his fourth album under the City and Colour moniker - and its popularity shows no sign of wavering. However, tonight in the beautiful, boiling Bush Hall, you can’t help but feel that the nature of the beast has become the problem.
Opening with ‘Forgive Me,’ Green’s voice is as stunningly beautiful as ever, cutting through the sparse backing with pitch perfect clarity. His vocals really are wonderful, but as the band step up their involvement on newer material, he ceases to be the centrepiece that he should – needs – to be. The sound is good enough inside Bush Hall – aided by the high, chandelier-laden ceiling – that Green’s voice is not lost below the music, but it ceases to be the main attraction. He utilises a higher register than before, less powerful and less damn impressive than when he belts out older cuts such as ‘Hello, I’m in Delaware’ or ‘Body in a Box.’
Instead of acting as a compliment to his voice, his band serve as more of a distraction, frequently slipping into a cacophony of surrounding noise. Moreover, the appeal of Green's voice and beautiful songwriting gets somewhat lost in the extra instrumentation and the set almost becomes boring; the increased sound of chattering in the audience suggesting that I wasn’t the only one to think so. Green is at his best on the songs that he performs alone. This is particularly evident on ‘The Girl.’ The first half of which is performed, beautifully, solo. The arrival of the band for the second half renders it clumsy and less appealing.
The intent behind writing full-band songs is obviously to stretch his wings as a musician – the majority of debut Sometimes was written when Green was 17 and he has clearly progressed since – but his voice will always be his biggest asset. I do not mean to fault his ability elsewhere, more to say that his voice is stunning – and it sounds best with minimal additional accompaniment, or when belted-out, Alexis-style - two things that he appears to have left behind in favour of middle-of-the-road backing band banality.
Towards the end of the gig, someone drunkenly shouts, “play Coming Home so we can leave!” Now I’m not condoning the heckling, but it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment – Dallas Green's best work may already be behind him.
James Tremain
