Like all the best performers, Willy Mason takes time to limber up. However, he does this in front of a packed house and gives the first few songs a lackadaisical air. But once he gets into it he delivers a gently charged performance.
It’s easy to get lost in Mason’s lyrics. Coming from a rich folk parentage, he has that genre’s unique storytelling capacity, bled with his own alt. country melodies. Like a personal diary set to music, his deep sombre tones confide on Live It Up; “I watched my whole world crumble as I dried my mother’s tears”. This New York born 22-years-olds talents lie in taking these intimate moments and constructing them into the most delicate of songs.
Nina Violet provides the female vocals, effortlessly topping KT Tunstall, who sings on latest single We can Be Strong. But tonight really kicks off when he’s joined on-stage by members of the support act. It turns into Willy Mason ‘The Band’ and far from drowning out the acoustic fragility of his melodies, it becomes a glorious ramshackle interpretive floorshow of seven swarming bodies and innumerable instruments as obscure as cockle shells and a yellow plastic children’s flute. One punter is moved to shout; “You’re a fuckin’ legend, mate”. There’s always one who gets over sentimental.
As the extra bodies depart, audience favourite Oxygen feels slightly lifeless after the throbbing gristle of the songs before. Having seen his music interpreted with such energy, it’ll be difficult to return to his CDs and not long for the pulsing heartbeat of that seven-man band.