Reviewed onMonday February 8
The 11-year absence of Nashville’s Gillian Welch and David Rawlings doesn’t seem to have affected their Australian fan base in the least, with Welch’s first Sydney show selling out instantly. The duo brought their American country narrative to the Enmore Theatre for a night peppered with humour and a running observation of all the songs about dead people they’re written over the years – much to the delight of fans who got to hear old favorites like ‘Elvis Presley Blues’, which worked to bring the body count up.
What makes the often harrowing and melancholy lyrics of Welch’s songs so vibrant and transfixing is their musical delivery. Rawlings’ dynamic fingerpicking in songs like ‘Time (The Revelator)’ absolutely slayed the audience. His ability to craft so many layers of sound, making it feel as though there’s an entire band performing in the room, puts him on par with authentic country greats like Justin Townes Earle. Welch also had a few tricks up her sleeve, with a thigh-slapping rendition of ‘Six White Horses’ featuring a cowboy boot scootin’ percussion solo.
Rawlings and Welch’s ‘box of curiosities’, featuring a vast collection of unique picks packed up in a small vintage carry cabinet, fed into the guessing game for a lot of audience members trying to predict the next song. The setlist was a mix of old and new, featuring ‘Scarlet Town,’ ‘Tennessee’, ‘The Way It Will Be’, and an audience request for ‘Hickory Wind’. There’s wasn’t a still foot in the entire theatre when the duo launched into Johnny Cash’s ‘Jackson’, with Rawlings showcasing his impressively high voice that makes singing Welch’s parts on songs (which he did several times) conveniently easy.
It was refreshing to see a duo that’s been touring together for so long genuinely happy and enthusiastic about playing their music, and this wasn’t lost on the crowd members wouldn’t stop calling out compliments – the most memorable being, “I love you both in completely different ways.”
