Mick Harvey – The Tuning Fork

Perhaps not surprisingly, the vibe at Mick Harvey’s show at Auckland’s Tuning Fork was similar in tone to Nick Cave’s solo shows this past December…just smaller in scale. Harvey delivered a short, emotionally-charged set, fired up by his excellent guitarist JP Shilo.

The faithful gathered on this Wednesday night to commune with Mick Harvey and his Intoxicated Men.  In addition to Shilo, who also played violin, the band featured Glenn Lewis on bass and Hugo Cran on drums.

Mick got things started with a stately version of Lee Hazelwood’s First St Blues, then raised the intensity level with October Boy, his tribute to fallen comrade Rowland S Howard.  But the time they got to The Saints’ The Story Of Love, the band was in full flight with JP Shilo ripping through the first of several explosive guitar solos.

Silo switched to the violin for The Ballad Of Jay Givens, adding a haunting tension to Harvey’s dark tale of a suicidal man.

Summertime In New York found the band conjuring up a noisy brew with Shilo again serving up a careening blast of guitar.

Harvey himself was in fine voice and in a good mood.

His vocal during Planetarium was beautifully sung and his delivery during Guy Clark’s Hank Williams Said It Best was spot on.

He gave bassist Glenn Lewis some good-natured ribbing for tuning up between every song, apologized to JP for forgetting some lyrics during I Wish I Were Stone and generally seemed to be enjoying himself.

“That seemed like a very short set…we’ve all been having far too much fun”, he declared after PJ Harvey’s Slow-Motion-Movie-Star.

With the set clocking in a under an hour, indeed it was too short.

Mick and the band remedied the situation with a four-song encore focussing on his mid-90s Serge Gainsbourg recordings beginning with a twangy Scenic Railway, which lightened the mood and was followed by a rollicking The Barrel Of My 45.

For Bonnie And Clyde, Harvey introduced a young lady who had been in the audience filming the show for the band…she calls herself Lyndell…and she provided the vocal parts originally sung by Anita Lane.

Then, after a bit of discussion with the band…”I’m not going to do that song”, Harvey insisted to Lewis…we were treated to Manu Chao’s  Out Of Time Man with its singalong chorus of “now it’s half past two…now its half past three”. And with that it was time to go.

Mick Harvey stuck around meeting fans, signing records at the merch desk and hanging out. Despite the dark nature of much of the material, there was an overriding sense of joy and community that made this one of the year’s best shows.

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Isaac Newcombe:

Mick Harvey set list:

1. First St Blues
2. October Boy
3. The Story Of Love
4. The Ballad Of Jay Givens
5. Summertime In New York
6. Bethelridge
7. I Wish I Were Stone
8. Planetarium
9. Glorious
10. Famous Last Words
11. Photograph
12. Hank Williams Said It Best
13. Slow-Motion-Movie-Star
14. Scenic Railway
15. The Barrel Of My 45
16. Bonnie And Clyde
17. Out Of Time Man