19 April 2009 (gig)
20 April 2009
Singer songwriter Nick Harper has an indefinable quality that was put on full display at The Junction on Sunday night. A sparse audience maybe, but those there could have been left in no doubt after two hours that the artist before them was one more than worthy of the admission price.
Whilst Harper is an acoustic performer, excelling on songs like the plaintive Love Is A Two-Way Thing, Crazy Boy (written in homage to his folk father Roy), Blood Song and a new track 38 (which is to feature on his new autumn release album and written, as he explains, after his 2007 charity expedition to Mt Everest), the quandary for a lot of people may be whether he can be rightly termed 'folk’, as he so often is. Certainly not when thundering out the likes of chord-driven, highly charged Aeroplane or Karmageddon when he easily rivals any good electric rock guitarist. That he dexterously moves with ease between the two seemingly opposing camps is a measure of this man.
Well worth a look-see before the end of his current tour, Harper has been around on the live gig circuit now for a good few years, picking up laudable praise from fans and peers along the way. If there has to be one minor critique, it’s the feeling that he may be travelling along an all-too-comfortable and well-trodden path. Working in partnership with another guitarist on stage for part of his set, even introducing a small string section, for example, one feels could open up new avenues for an artist well up to the challenge.
