Cass McCombs

Live reviews

• Cass McCombs

  Both in terms of his recorded output and live appearances, Cass McCombs is to be commended for not conforming to trends or expectations held by either critics or audiences. The Californian singer songwriter is a prolific studio artist, clearly in love with his craft, yet his demeanour on stage doesn’t instantly display much that could be confused with enthusiasm. Even when promoting a new album, McCombs has a penchant for not playing any songs off it at all – rather, you’re just as likely to get skeletal versions of tracks that will not appear in recorded form until many years down the line, or expeditions in to his vast back catalogue for tunes even the most die hard of fans mightn’t be particularly familiar with. Cass McCombs audiences aren’t pandered to, but they are treated to something perhaps far more enlightening than an artist running through his hits. Instead, this is an insight in to a personality, unafraid to show himself in a vulnerable light – something that’s often misconstrued for arrogance, but categorically should not be. Less suited to the festival circuit than he is to venues such as London’s idyllic Union Chapel, where a set in 2012 that focused heavily on material from the pair of albums he released the year prior (Wit’s End and Humor Risk) made for a particularly spellbinding evening. If you get the chance to attend something similar, make sure you head along – but leave your preconceptions at home.

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  by ThomasHannan

• To see Cass McCombs is to see a true artist at work. This is to say that at no point in his career has the word “compromise” been thought, and everything one sees onstage at a concert of his is what he wants to say, and what he wants you, the audience, to see. Of course, with artists so driven to so exactly as they please comes a certain difficulty. While it may not be cool to play to an audience and feel a sense of duty to entertain them, it certainly makes the experience nicer for the audience. Fortunately, everything that McCombs wants to make is built on a foundation of simple, yet jaw-droppingly gorgeous country rock. While some of his music spirals off to Velvet Underground esque chugs and experiments with jazz sax, it always comes back to McCombs’ unique gift with an incredibly affecting melody, and it has double the effect when seen live. Backed by a revolving backing band and with a predilection for jamming on a lot of his most beloved songs, McCombs seems to treat his live shows as an excuse to explore his own songs and see just where they could go given the chance to stretch themselves. Like most things he does, it’s unique to him and few others. Hopefully given time he’ll have inspired a new generation of artists to treat live shows the way he does but until then, it’s your job as music fans to see it done by the artist that perfected it as soon as possible.

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  by william-howard-2

• Whatever you think of Cass McCombs’ music, you have to admit that he deserves credit for doing things the old-fashioned way; determined to become a singer-songwriter, he left his small-town home in California for New York City, with the aim of developing his musical abilities as best he could. In 2001, the 9/11 terrorist attacks had him heading back home again - as well as the fact that he’d run out of money - and it was in San Francisco that he recorded his sun-kissed first EP. It was enough to get him signed to 4AD, the label through which he made a name for himself with his debut album, A. He carved out a fervent cult fanbase therefrom, and continues to record and tour today, although he has switched imprints to Domino. He’s been on the road with the likes of The Decemberists, The Walkmen, Thurston Moore, The Shins and Iron and Wine in the past, and after releasing his seventh album, Big Wheel and Others, last year, he played five, rapturously-received shows across the UK this past January, with his London Southbank Centre show in particular meeting with rave reviews from the critics on a jaunt that also took him to Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol.

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  by Joeg_67

• Magical! Parish is a great venue, and the perfect size for this show. A good mix of newer and older songs were performed. Only wish he had played "Home on the Range"!

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  by jacqui-dyach