25th February 2010, GIG: Shearwater + David Thomas Broughton, Scala

When David Thomas Broughton takes the stage, you really don't get any idea of what's coming. He looks normal, for a start. The first surprise comes when, after a few seconds of folky acoustic guitar, he sings. Woah! He has the voice of Antony Hegarty with a Yorkshire accent. Incredible. Next surprise is when after looping some guitar and voice rather pleasantly, he records the sound of him hitting his guitar, discordant, out of time and, eventually, utterly fucked up. In much the same way as Wilco chose to wilfully render At Least That's What You Said (from A Ghost Is Born) 'tough listening' with a squall of guitars, here Broughton does the same. And it's a trick he uses repeatedly, by looping his own heavy breathing, the sound of his scarf against the mic, headbutting the mic and using a tape walkman on fast forward/rewind to mess up his fantastically experimental folk. Nothing fits quite right in the world of DTB. His lyrics, you'd expect, would be flowery, folky, about the earth and maidens. Instead, he sings about his balls, a bear turd and how "god loves a murderer, because there's so much sin to forgive". At watching a performance so intense (DTB stares, he does freakish hand gestures that make him look like he's just realised he exists and sometimes he crouches, fist against forehead, earnest rock star-style), it's odd to hear audience titters and all out laughter at his lyrics. When Shearwater join him to provide the backing vocals of "joke...joke...you're just a joke...joke" for the final song, it's no longer a surprise. By this time, you've learnt to expect the unexpected and for it to be utterly brilliant, totally captivating and quite like nothing else you've seen before. If John Martyn passed the baton on to anyone, he passed it on to David Thomas Broughton.

Shearwater were always going to struggle to match Broughton's invention. But what they lack in experimentation, they make up for with sheer drama. Their songs are powerful in their earnestness, mainly due to singer Jonathan Meiburg's voice, which as with Broughton's, sounds wrong coming from a man so slight. His voice ranges from a clear, ringing holler to a gentle whisper and never once faulters. Unfortunately, Shearwater just don't have the songs to carry them through a whole set. The middle section of their set sags badly, with a raft of songs that inspire indifference as much as anything else. They pull it back round though, ending triumphantly, with this audience rapt. Special mention must go to their drummer also. A man who looks like a member of Iron Maiden's road crew, he shakes audience hands as he leaves the stage, introduces the band (forgetting one member in the process) and generally looks like an 80s rock god. He plays the oboe. He's called Thor.