Concert Review: Deva Mahal at Ponsonby Social Club 16 May 2021

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A packed Social Club tonight but it seemed like the room could barely contain the powerful voice of Deva Mahal. Big and soulful. Her voice seems to come from much older roots and traditions.

Black American traditions, and it seems all through the show that she carries a lot of historical weight with her songs.

Connections with New Zealand since she first moved here aged seventeen. Also been based in New York City and New Orleans. She brings a lot of musical pedigree with her, from soil and from genes.

She has appeared with her father Taj Mahal to sing Chain of Fools at an Aretha Franklin tribute show at Carnegie Hall in 2017.    

With her tonight are backing singers Katelin Little and younger sister Zoe Moon. Marika Hodgson plays acoustic guitar in the expansive style of a full band.

Takunda

TakundaTakunda is a young woman from Zimbabwe who opens the show with some of her original poetry. Narratives of Africa and colonisation.  Heartfelt expressions of the immigrant’s experience. The pandemic woven into the narrative. Topical in the sense that migrants are being made a political football again as many in the country want to pull up the drawbridge and hide under the bed.

A part of the crowd here would be migrants, or descendants of. The words are meant to be confrontational.

Deva Mahal

It is a good introduction for Deva and her band. There is a lot of Black history in her songs.

Deva MahalBeen a Long Time. That possibly is the title of the opener. It’s Folk and it’s a lament. The guitar leads it along quietly and soon the voice is hitting high peaks effortlessly. I can’t judge/ Darkness inside/ I can’t go on.

Garden is definitely tending to Hippie Folk, but sung with some nice Soul touches. Singing about food for the children.

Everywhere has the guitar playing a nice Seventies Paul Simon style intro before taking off with a Pop tune. The one and only time we get to hear a smooth deep vocal tone tonight. The harmony singers rise up in inspiration before Deva literally lifts the roof off the place with a high break.

There are some newly minted tunes tonight. Something Good is about useless men who burn me once/ Burn me twice. A simple song with a big Soul heart.

Then there is one with lyrics you go where you please. Gospel testifying about obsessive love. Huge and overwhelming but she can carry it off with style.

Goddam has a distinctly Jazz flavour in the phrasing and maybe it’s been there all night and I just hadn’t noticed it. Echoes of Nina Simone, and it could be an adaptation of her Mississippi Goddam.

Its Down To You is her favourite from the sole album to date Run Deep. A magnificent Soul vocal with a spare acoustic guitar and the performance can stand with the best of, say, Gladys Knight. Emotion from still waters running deep.

Sister is the brand-new single duetting with sister Zoe Moon. Blend of Pop and Soul. A slow measured guitar with added percussion beats. The song remains minimal but keeps up a beautiful tension throughout, and resists the urge to overpower.

There is a cover of Lady Wray’s Come On In. Back to Folk Soul.

Finishes with a slow torch song. You are so careless with my heart. Gospel Spiritual.

Magnificent voice. All through the night Deva said it was such a blast to be able to play live, especially when most can’t. That sentiment had full expression tonight.

Rev Orange Peel

Rev Orange Peel
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