Paul Kelly @ The Spiegeltent, 5 Aug
The mid-section of Kelly's A-Z assault on his back catalogue sends everyone home happy
It’s a novel idea, but for someone with a back catalogue as bulging as Paul Kelly a three night A-Z assault may be the only way to get through his soothing and affecting brand of Aussie folk indiscriminately. He takes us from ‘I’ to ‘Q’ tonight, afore a crowd unsurprisingly groaning under the weight of a southern hemisphere contingent. He’s joined on-stage by frequent collaborator Dan Kelly, whose tremolo heavy electric licks glide gently over his celebrated namesake’s acoustic strumming and poignant tales of Ned Kelly (Our Sunshine) and the effects of atomic testing on Aborigine people (Maralinga). It’s not all doom and gloom, though. ‘L’ brings Little Boy Don’t Lose Your Balls and a ripple of laughter from a crowd already sold by the time he’d reached ‘J’. There’s a charm to Paul Kelly - the person and the musician - one that’s inescapable tonight in the intimate and strangely ambient confines of the Spiegel Tent. [Finbarr Bermingham]