The Boy With The Guitar Strap.
Review of Andy Crofts live at Pier Road Gallery, Littlehampton.
Crofts’ own compositions; catchy, well-crafted pop songs that wear their Ray Davies influences proudly formed the heart of the evening. English Summer, Westway, Jennifer Sits Alone, Sleep, Wondering, An Ordinary Romance and more. These songs resonate as a thoughtful canon and shine in an acoustic setting stripped of embellishment and with clear enunciation.
Doors at 6.45. Leave your smart phone apps and your algorithmic advances at home, if you want proof that music still needs human hands, a heart and a mid-session tune up or two Andy Crofts delivered it with authenticity at the final PRCA Session of this year.
You might know Crofts as the Brazil-born multi-disciplinary instrumentalist formerly integral to Paul Weller’s outfit or as the main man behind indie band The Moons. But strip away studio sheen and a full band arrangement, his particular forte, what you’re left with is something far more essential: one bloke, two young colouring-in kids, an electric acoustic six-string, a new amplifier, and a well employed songbook that spans his own Home Counties folk pop and some perfectly curated covers.
The intimate setting suited him, even if as he confessed with disarming honesty that he finds these close-quarters gigs more nerve-wracking than playing to hundreds of thousands at Glastonbury. Out there you can hide behind the lights; here, if your music stand collapses, you forget a chord (D7) or your young daughter clatters off her chair mid-song, everyone notices. The beauty and terror of ‘the toilet tour’ eh?
Crofts’ own compositions; catchy, well-crafted pop songs that wear their Ray Davies influences proudly formed the heart of the evening. English Summer, Westway, Jennifer Sits Alone, Sleep, Wondering, An Ordinary Romance and more. These songs resonate as a thoughtful canon and shine in an acoustic setting stripped of embellishment and with clear enunciation.
The covers arrived like love letters from a pre-digital age. Honeybus’ “I Can’t Let Maggie Go” emerged unplugged and liberated from its Seventies white bread-advert production. The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” bounced along with an unexpected verve – Terry and Julie still crossing that river in our collective consciousness, no matter how many Reels were distracted by. From Badly Drawn Boy’s ip-so fact-o singalong “Something To Talk About”, to a Crofts meditation on Lennon’s raw demo of “Watching the Wheels,” from “And I Love Her” to “Good Thing” a formerly-reggae number rendered in acoustic pop – each reimagining proved that great songs transcend their original arrangements when you ‘handle with care’ – “over to you George”.
PRCA’s faithful got exactly what live music should be: confessional, imperfect, immediate, impossible to replicate with a million lines of code.
A one-man analog breakwater against a tech tide.
45renegade.