Reviewed on Monday November 14
When Sixto Rodriguez stepped out from behind the curtain, the cheer that greeted him was incredible – here was a man that some folks had been waiting 40 years to finally see in the flesh. What was surprising, however, were his chaperones. Rodriguez walked very stiffly, and seemed to rely on assistants to steer him towards the stool from which he would hold court for an hour and a half. At 74, you can easily forgive him such frailty, though as one elderly beseeching fan discovered at the concert’s end, standing at the front of stage waving an LP under the singer’s face, the hesitant steps aren’t as much from physical frailty as they are from blindness. Rodriguez reportedly has terrible glaucoma these days, and it is a twisted kind of fate that has rekindled his success and international roaming at a time when he can’t actually see such rewards.
After the night kicked off with a splendid set from Archie Roach – whose wavering voice lends great poignancy to his lyrics now, and whose message of steering kids away from smoking is highlighted by a candid confession of having half a cancerous lung removed – I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Rodriguez. With age comes a natural diminishing of one’s vocal prowess, and most people can name a performer long past their prime who should perhaps have ducked out of the game when the going was good. But no word of a lie, so strong and vibrant is Rodriguez’s voice, I was at first convinced the guy was lip-syncing his way through earlier recordings. It wasn’t until third song and perennial favourite, ‘I Wonder’, with a couple of extra words thrown in and notes that faded in and out as he reeled back from the mic, that I was finally convinced this was the real deal.
It’s really quite remarkable to hear an artist of this calibre and vintage whose voice remains so youthful. To hear him sing ‘Rich Folks Hoax’ was a true delight. He is also, quite literally, a man of many hats – a small table nearby held a collection of several different options that he swapped between as the night progressed. Likewise, Rodriguez turned to multiple covers during his set – from ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ to Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Somebody To Love’, The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’ and to the evening’s closer, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, this set was a fine retrospective of the songs that have inspired Rodriguez over the years.
The only caveat came, sadly, from the audience. You get enough booze into these baby boomers and all courtesy flies out the window. You could count on any interlude between songs to be a barrage of slurred song requests and standing-in-the-aisle insistences that Rodriguez acknowledge how his music saved his/her life. Little wonder that halfway through the night saw Rodriguez muse on the nature of strong emotion; of how closely aligned love, hate and fear might be. Such observations went largely over the head of his more passionate fans, but even despite their disruptions, you couldn’t stay mad. Not when they had championed his music for so very long, and when the man himself still has such a startling and powerful presence.
