Cy Winstanley – Freida Margolis January 26, 2022

Cy Winstanley steps out on his own with a little help from Dave Khan to keep live music alive as Auckland rides out the red zone.

If you’re looking for live music these days you’ve gotta keep your eyes and ears open. I happened to be in Grey Lynn yesterday afternoon when I suddenly heard the (now) rare sound of musicians playing. I crossed the street and peeked into the door of 440 Richmond Rd to find Cy Winstanley, he of The Tattletale Saints, running through a sound check with Dave Khan (Tami Neilson, Reb Fountain, etc).

“Oh yeah”, I said to myself, “Cy was supposed to play at Freida’s”, but that was before the ‘traffic light’ turned red. Most shows had been cancelled since then, but Cy and Dave decided to hang in there, deal with limited admission, social distancing and all the rest.

And so I returned to Grey Lynn at 8pm to find a crowd…seated, masked, distanced…inside and out on the pavement basking in the evening sun and listening to Dave Khan’s opening set.

By then Dave had gone all Kenny Rogers on us, finishing with The Gambler, and followed by The Hobo Song, with its refrain, “he used to be a gambling man”. Headliner Cy was on hand to help out.

There was a break, drinks were served, I managed to kick over a friend’s beer and a road crew pulled up in a large, noisy truck, ominously looking to make a racket.

But the Gods of live music were with us…the crew picked up their orange cones and drove off and I got my buddy another beer.

This was a rare solo outing for Cy, who is usually seen and heard in the company of Vanessa McGowan as the alt country duo Tattletale Saints. The two Kiwis are now based in Nashville but Cy had been back in NZ to visit family and was persuaded by Dave K to try to pull off this solo show.

“We had no idea what was going to go down this evening”, claimed Cy as he and Dave kicked off the set with a song called Honestly…Dave’s fiddle weaving in, out and around Cy’s guitar and voice.

We were then treated to some tasty pickin’ during the next tune…a little number called She Had The Dumplings subtitled The Covid Blues.

Cy’s between stage banter was as entertaining as his songs.

He told us about connecting to his inner Whitney Houston on One More Trick In The Box, urged us to sing along during She Loves The Honey (a real crowdpleaser) and brought us down to Earth on Came A Long Way Down.

The new songs sounded great, holding up against Tattletale  ‘standards’ such as Sonoma County Wine and Bobby Where Did You Learn To Dance. Other non-original highlights included a cover of John Martyn’s May You Never and Neil Young’s Walk On.

Cy even played a tune from his children’s album, Floating Down The River (released under his alter-ego Simon Stanley).

New tune No Worries was certainly not for the kiddies, but the adults here love the risqué lyrics.

Then the road crew’s truck returned and things looked like they may get disruptive. But as the sun set, and the truck reversed down Hakanoa Street, the warning beeps of the reversing truck seemed to lock in time to the music coming from inside Freida’s.

It was that kind of night.

Marty Duda

Click here to order Floating Down The River 

Cy Winstanley set list:

1. Honestly
2. She Had The Dumplings/Covid Blues
3. One More Trick In The Box
4. Talking You Down
5. Secretly Stoned
6. She Loves The Honey
7. Came A Long Way Down
8. No Worries
9. May You Never
10. Sonoma County Wine
11. How Do You Live With Yourself
12. Floating Down The River
13. D.I.N.K.
14. Bobby Where Did You Learn To Dance
15. Walk On