23 February 2008 (gig)
02 March 2008
Nick Harper is a man who has more talent in his toenail clippings than all those chart-topping, major-label, mediocre warblers and soundalike pretty boys put together.
Described as 'the man who plays guitar like he's wearing god's underpants', I am quite certain that at London’s famous 100 Club on Saturday he was wearing a sequin-encrusted pair of Jehovah’s boxers, as he was on sparkling form.
He treated the audience to his usual jaw-dropping display of virtuoso guitar attack - slapping, hacking, picking, strumming, thumping and stroking his way through his set. With hurricane-force playing like Nick's, he often breaks a string. Sadly this didn’t happen on Saturday so he didn’t get a chance to show off his effortless party piece of changing a string while continuing the sing the song.
'How’s your Dad?' someone shouts between songs,referring to Nick’s father, the legendary singer/songwriter Roy Harper. 'He’s fine' Nick tells us. He gets this all the time. Having a famous Dad must be a mixed blessing.
Between songs Nick, often wittily and poignantly explains the inspiration behind his songs. We should expect nothing less of a son of Roy Harper, whose between-songs chat is as legendary his reputation. One crusty in the audience shouts: 'Shut up and play a tune!' Nick loses his thread briefly but the audience murmur their support and he regains control.
As well as his ever present themes of history, social justice and family, since Nick trekked to Everest last October for the Love Hope Strength cancer foundation, he’s been talking about mountains a lot, carefully creating a backdrop from which he hangs his songs together. By the end of the gig you feel like you’ve 'got’ what makes Nick Harper tick.
Last night he played old favourites like 'Aeroplane’, 'By My Rocket Comes Fire’ and 'Imaginary Friend’. Alongside standard covers of 'Guitar Man’ (with added Whole Lotta Love where he lets his inner Led Zeppelin hang out) and Monty Python’s 'Galaxy Song’. Since his autumn tour he’s changed the set, adding the catchy 'Treasure Island’, and the haunting 'Evo’ about the unconventional and inspirational Bolivian president Evo Morales.
He finished by performing the finest version of his epic 'Love Is Music’ I’ve ever heard him play. This song takes you time-travelling: he plays and sings for 20 minutes and more without stopping, but so good is it that it feels like no more than three of your earth minutes have passed. Then you realise you have entered deep harperspace! The song combines the anthemic chant 'Love Is music’ which morphs into Jeff Buckley’s 'Grace’, seamlessly moving into Zeppelin’s pulsating 'Four Sticks’, the Beatles’ 'Norwegian Wood’, the whole of Nick’s own composition 'Headless’ and then back, triumphantly, to the 'Love Is Music’ chant. It ought be a cacophony, but in Nick’s hands it becomes symphonic.
For Nick Harper there’s 'no enticing jiggery cakery, no icing from the half bakery', as he himself sings in a track from his ladt album called 'Simple’. Just expertly crafted songs about things that really matter, played with passion. Simple.
www.harperspace.com
Photo: Moth Clark
