Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy was kind of amazing on Saturday. It was a long way from the super-polished, note for note album-perfect kind of performance that some people think constitutes a gig these days. It was actually a bit ropey in places, the band were a little dysfunctional, sometimes reaching these incredible moments of empathy and beauty, but quite often it took a while of scratchy mis-communicating to get there. Like those conversations you have with your lover when you’ve been away too long and it takes a while till you find a way to get back in the groove.
The ‘prince’ was in fine form, like some crazy eccentric, southern gothic polymath. It feels sometimes that he has parachuted in from a different time all together, to remind us of all we’ve lost-the things we’ve somehow discarded and didn’t know how much we grieved for till he sings of about them.
Good times.
My favourite moment was a sort of sea-shanty medley, which culminated in a killer version of this track from the wonderful ‘Superwolf’ album.