Audience Member Cuts Rag’n’Bone Man To The Bone

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An Audience member cuts Rag’n’Bone man to the bone at his Auckland concert in Spark Arena… But the booming baritone shut the heckler down like a boss.

Perhaps it was a premonition of sorts when, upon entering the evening’s venue, the arena had been halved. Alas, one could argue that a more intimate space was precisely what would do the acts justice. However, it’s fair to say that while Rag’n’Bone Man blew the crowd away with his versatile vocals, the Auckland audience behaved rather poorly. Thankfully, it didn’t put a dampener on the evening.

Kicking off with the soothing sounds of Northland-born, Auckland-residing singer songwriter Teeks, and his two gorgeous female vocalists… perhaps what stood out even more than the dulcet tones of the opening act, clothed simply in black and white, was his keyboardist. As the only musical accompaniment, creating the perfect vehicle for tunes like gospel song Wash Over Me from Teeks’ folk EP Grapefruit Skies all the way to a cover of Alicia Key’s How Come You Don’t Call Me. As soon as the lights dimmed, the audience was transported; the arena was no longer the arena, but rather, a sexy, smoke-filled lounge where one was encouraged to do nothing else but settle into a booth dripping in leather and wood, cocktail firmly in hand, to sway slightly to “escape the world” with originals like If Only, Wave and Without You.

Promptly the band (made up of a keyboardist, guitarist, drummer, trumpet, trombone, bassist and a small but mighty female vocalist) turned up for the last leg of their Australia-New Zealand tour. No sooner had the time come for a punchy taste of the British reincarnate of Barry White. Known to his friends as Rory, it is apt in so many ways that Rag’n’Bone Man’s first words on stage were “holy shit!”. Not one to censor himself or mince words, the bearded, tattooed baritone bear was in the house to keep the Wolves from the door; complete with a succulent bassline to get us limbered up for the shenanigans to come.

Treating us to another tune from his latest album Human, the live rendition of Ego can best be described as having a marching band in your living room — larger than life and a force to be reckoned with.

Taking the time to make the audience chuckle, Rory said that next song, contrary to popular belief, didn’t come with a “deep and meaningful meaning”, it was simply about an ex-girlfriend’s inability to be on time; cue Your Way or The Rope — another goodie from the deluxe version of his latest LP. Following on from that, the stage was bathed in a crimson hue for The Fire where hearts were set alight to the sound of beating drums.

Next on the agenda, we took a trip back to 2014 for No Mother where Rory’s voice was a little lost in the cacophony but the sentiment of ‘…she don’t need another heartbreak’ rang true loud and clear.

Clearly enjoying the trip down memory lane, Rory joked that this was not his first rodeo and with older projects going back six to seven years, it would be silly not to regale us with a magnificent rendition of his Johnny Cash-esque song Hard Came the Rain. And, owing to the fact that family means a lot to the singer songwriter, it was only a matter of time that he would do a heartfelt Life in Her Yet — a song he wrote for his grandmother that not only showed off his upper register but boasted a trumpet and trombone intro that was elegantly, old-worldly.

Still on the family buzz, a hushed came over the crowd as Rory sang Odetta — a song he wrote about his niece for his brother who he loves dearly, despite the fact he’s been a massive “dickhead” in the last 10 years. This was followed by a new tune George Has Got A Friend that Rory and his band had only performed live four times. This new one was dedicated to a friend of his seven-month-old son, Reuben.

Alas, it was when Rory introduced the next tune by saying “it starts of shit but it gets better; it’s a song about hope” that things got a little hairy. An audience member decided this was the perfect time to loudly say, “f*ck hope”. And while one wouldn’t expect heckling at a concert, Rory could barely contain his laughter, said it could well be the “best heckle” he’d ever received before composing himself to give the song Grace the seriousness it needed… he did, for the most part, but decided it was too good a chance to pass up on incorporating the audience member’s outburst into the song.

With an evening punctuated with choruses that were nothing short of epic, courtesy of the baritone bear’s insane abilities, it seemed fitting to close the evening off with a slew of bangers — from a slow, magical, only-piano accompanied rendition of Skin that had the crowd enthralled from start to feisty finish to a stirring version of Take You As You Are to the much-anticipated Human that shone the spotlight on Rory’s rapping abilities. As if we needed reminding of just what his voice could do, it was time for a fully acapella version of Die Easy before an epic encore (where he had the crowd in stitches when he said, “we tried to be mysterious but fat people can’t be mysterious”) of Bitter End before drawing a wonderful evening to a close with body-roll-friendly and could-easily-be-the-next-James-Bond-theme-tune Hell Yeah.

Nah, we don’t have a ‘bone’ to pick with you, Rory… you can most certainly come again.

Deborah Raj

 Rag’n’Bone Man, Spark Arena April 6 2018

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Reuben Raj:

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