When you are about to experience an Evan Dando performance you enter into the venue and the evening with a little bit of trepidation.
His past performances around the world have been chequered with mishaps and downright appalling reviews at times.
Some recent interviews have had him talking bollocks about aliens and conspiracy theories around the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on 9/11 and you do wonder what you are going to experience when you have him in front of you in the flesh.
For this instalment we have Dando joined by his long-time friend and sometime collaborator Juliana Hatfield. Taking to the stage at the packed out Metro in Sydney, they are met with a rapturous greeting and are quite taken aback by the size of the crowd. Hatfield even appears to be a bit shaky during the first part of the evening.
Nerves did not last for long and Dando and Hatfield took us on a journey of their songbooks, trading songs and tales as if they were sitting around on a couch at home. They added harmonies and backing vocals to each other’s tunes and this made for some appealing sounds throughout the (almost overly long) two hour set.
The highlights were the big numbers that the audience seemed much attached to. “It’s A Shame About Ray”, “Alison’s Starting To Happen”, “Into Your Arms”, and “My Drug Buddy” were amongst the fan favourites.
Hatfield was not to be left out and “Butterflies”,”Ugly”, and the very well done “My Sister” really gave her a chance to shine while Dando took a back seat.
The other gems on display were some covers that really gave the longish set some electricity. Michael Nesmith’s “Different Drum” (made famous by Linda Ronstadt back in the day) was one of the best songs of the evening sonically and emotionally.
“Pale Blue Eyes”, a Velvet Underground cover, was charming, warm, and mostly in key. Dando also rolled out the Gram Parsons gold nugget “$1000 Dollar Wedding”, which added a little bit more Americana to proceedings.
Hatfield and Dando were able to keep most of the audience engaged within the walls of the venue for the long haul. This illustrates that two average guitarists with better than average voices and excellent songs can still do what minstrels did in the past.
It does not take a stage show to keep people engaged, it was all about the quality of the songs. There were no disasters tonight, just a warm fuzzy feeling as the audience left thinking of days past and the charm that Hatfield and Dando gave us as an early Christmas present.
