Kings Park,April 12&13
James Taylor onstage at Kings Park.duncanbarnes.photography
First,a confession – before joining the boomer army who descended on Kings Park for the first concert in James Taylor’s reported final Australian tour I had a nanna nap.
No,I wasn’t worried the subdued superstar of soft rock would have us dancing in the aisles the way Tom Jones and Chris Isaak did in the past two in-the-park performances.
My concern is that many of Taylor’s most cherished songs are virtual lullabies,which after a few wines under the stars is a dangerous cocktail for boomers.
I had visions of myself nodding off as Taylor slid into his melancholy masterpiece Fire and Rain,dreaming of my upcoming US holiday duringCarolina In My Mind or totally embarrassing myself and snoring throughSweet Baby James.
The veteran delivered a five-star performance.DUNCANBARNES.PHOTOGRAPHY
What snapped me to attention and kept me smiling and rocking gently for the entire show was the passion with which Taylor attacked each of the numbers,the astute and generous way he brought his breathtakingly good band and backing singers into the show and his surprisingly offbeat sense of humour.
Amusingly,the cry of “we love you,James!” at the beginning of the show came not from an excited woman but an older bloke,which gives us insight into laid-back libido of older Aussie men.
“How sweet it is to be loved by you!” sang out another of his adoring older male fans (what is it with male boomers and James Taylor?),to which he responded by peeling the surprisingly large set list off the floor,pointing out his beloved version of the Marvin Gaye classic in the line-up and telling the guy that he’ll get around to it in his own time.
Expectedly,at 76 Taylor’s voice isn’t what it once was. However,like all those classic artists in the folk/troubadour singer/songwriter tradition such as Bob Dylan,Leonard Cohen,Randy Newan and Paul Simon the decline in vocal power brings with it a lived-in richness,transforming a simple song of homesickness into a lament for a life that will never be recaptured.
Ironically,his voice was at its best in his version of the Latin-influenced rouser Mexico,with the crack band and note-perfect backing vocalists creating a depth and fullness of sound.
Taylor’s goofy sense of humour shone brightest in his thumpingly great version ofSteamroller Blues from this breakthrough albumSweet Baby James in which he twisted his face like the blues rockers he was not,hamming it up and parodying the artists who no doubt would have found him insufferably soft.
Of course,Taylor is a superb guitarist with a distinctive style that has been studied and analysed,so students of the instrument would have appreciated the close-ups of him playing on the video screens and his obvious respect for his musicians and backing singers.
After keeping me wide awake with this very classy,surprisingly upbeat show Taylor sent us off into the night withYou Can Close Your Eyes from his third albumMud Slide Slim and theBlue Horizon (1971),in which he reassures a lover that she can still sing his songs when he is gone.
After the ecstatic reception Taylor received at Kings Park — there was so much love rolling down the grassy sides of the Kings Park amphitheatre and onto the stage I was nervously looking around for life preservers — you know absolutely they will be singingSweet Baby James’ songs long after he is gone.
James Taylor’s second show was on Saturday night at Kings Park.
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