BILLY BRAGG at The Horseshoe Tavern, Tuesday, September 26. Rating: NNNN
Billy Bragg played the first show of his sold-out three-night residency at the Horseshoe Tuesday night. He had promised to play his current live set. Turns out that offered enough leeway for the evening to serve as a bit of a warm-up (or preview) for Wednesday and Thursday when he’ll be tackling a trio of albums from the early to mid-80s and the late 80s to early 90s respectively.
Bragg’s three-night stand was a no-brainer to begin the legendary bar/concert venue’s 70th anniversary celebrations. The British singer/songwriter hearkens back to the ‘Shoe’s history as both a home for roots-rock and country and punk, and he’s been playing for local crowds since the mid-80s (most recently at Guelph’s Hillside Festival and promoting his new book on Skiffle at the Gladstone). This time, he joked to the sweltering, packed in crowd, he may even get over jet lag enough to wake up at a normal hour this week, versus the usual 5 am.
Though Bragg is not a local, he still felt like a fitting choice when Horseshoe co-owner Jeff Cohen gave a colourful history of the bar before his set.
For the past year or so, Bragg’s been busy touring Shine A Light – a wonderful train songs covers album with Joe Henry that gently draws connections between America’s struggles with poverty, inequality and homelessness in the past with today. But on the Horseshoe stage, he set aside those tunes to return to a scrappier, clangier, more politically charged solo Billy Bragg experience. That’s often as much about his funny and inspired spoken word segues as it is about his incredible, hummable songwriting. But apparently, he hadn’t done it for a while. “I’m rusty and biddable,” he warned us. “A dangerous combination.”
Despite joking about his memory as he approaches his 60th birthday, Bragg seems to have a great handle on his back catalogue, which he gave us lots of over the course of a generous two- hour set. He played songs from 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry, and a few each from Life’s A Riot (1983), Workers Playtime (1988) and Don’t Try This At Home (1991). He also played some of his (relatively speaking) newer songs, like his Anais Mitchell cover (Why We Build The Wall), Woody Guthrie’s I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore and his apt re-write of a Dylan classic, The Times They Are A-Changing Back.
In fact, the only noticeable “rustiness” was a tentative moment during a new song about Saffiyah Khan, a young woman who stood up to an English Defence League protestor in Birmingham in a viral photograph earlier this year.
An activist and news junkie, Bragg has always addressed current political issues, which have revitalized him during 2017’s uneasy times. He spoke and sang about climate change and its socio-economic ramifications, the importance of not getting complacent, the parallels between Trump’s proposed wall between the U.S. and Mexico and the UK’s Brexit. He also told a long anecdote about meeting the Queen after after a performance of his version of Ode To Joy, which spoke to the awkwardness of celebrity and royalty.
But Bragg’s got another songwriting side, one more sly and cheekily personal, and one clearly popular with his fans. His most intense string of songs – The Short Answer, Must I Paint You A Picture and Shirley – were more sentimental, and came towards the end of the night. “Ya big softies,” he told the crowd when he heard the applause.
Often, brilliantly, Bragg sang to both sensibilities at once, getting the crowd to yell along to There Is Power In A Union and New England at the end of the show.
As he likes to do, he ended the night by reminding us that he’s just a guy with a guitar, and it’s our responsibility to get politically active ourselves. Soon enough, he’s gonna move on to the next town to rile the next crowd up.
music@nowtoronto.com | @sarahegreene
