Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets – Powerstation February 25, 2020
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets rocked the Powerstation last night. Marty Duda was on hand and files this review.
At age 70 Nick Lowe seems to have discovered some kind of fountain of youth. No doubt in the form of backing band Los Straitjackets.
Last time Lowe was in Auckland he performed at the Powerstation playing mostly his then-current crop of tunes from his The Old Magic album with a sound based on older, tin pan alley style songs.
This time around Lowe has reclaimed his rock & roll cred thanks to 4-piece rockers Los Straitjackets. The quartet is known to mix rockabilly, surf and r&b into their own recordings and they injected plenty of those vintage sounds into Lowe’s tunes.
The set began with So It Goes from Nick’s 1978 debut album, Jesus Of Cool. It sounded a bit more restrained than the recorded version I remember… perhaps Lowe and the band were just getting warmed up.
It didn’t take them long to hit their stride as they dove into a twangy Without Love, then getting to the rock-a-billy groove of Shting Shtang. That one was loads of fun.
After Tokyo Bay, Lowe left the stage and Los Straitjackets took over for a brief set of instrumental surf-rockers that threatened to bring the house down including an excellent version of Shocking Blue’s Venus.
After an extended Itchy Chicken, which gave the band plenty of space to stretch out, Lowe returned with Breaking Glass and Half A Boy And Half A Man.
Eventually they got to “the hits” Cruel To Be Kind, Heart Of The City and I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll).
The encore included another surf instrumental (kudos to guitarists Eddie Angel and Greg Townson), then finally wrapping with When I Write The Book and (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love And Understanding.
An excellent show from beginning to end…a shame there wasn’t a bigger crowd, but those of us who were there had a ball.
Marty Duda
Nick Lowe setlist:
- So It Goes
- Raging Eyes
- Without Love
- You Inspire Me
- Shting Shtang
- Raincoat In The River
- Somebody Cares For Me
- Tokyo Bay
- Kawanga
- Wrong Way Inn
- Venus
- Driving Guitars
- Itchy Chicken
- I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass
- Half A Boy And Half A Man
- Love Starvation
- Lay It On Me Baby
- Waiting
- Blue On Blue
- Feeling Again
- Cruel To Be Kind
- Heart Of The City
- I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll)
- Charge Key
- When I Write The Book
- (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love & Understanding
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The Lone Ranger
February 26, 2020 @ 3:05 pm
I would have been there & also at Patty Griffin & Eilen Jewell but the cost of airfares & accom are expensive.Clearly Aucklanders are too well fed in terms of musical events