James Elkington Live Show Review: 10/12, Evanston SPACE
As he persistently repeated the words “sister of mine” to end the song of the same title, James Elkington turned to the crowd Sunday night at SPACE and dryly stated, “That song was called ‘Sister of Mine’.” The guitarist and singer-songwriter, who has released two very good solo albums via Paradise of Bachelors, played two socially distant outdoor shows alongside upright bassist and frequent collaborator Nick Macri; in a way, Elkington’s the perfect person to see play right now. Perhaps you know nothing about his music but are a fan of the 60′s and 70′s British folk and prog by which he’s inspired. Maybe you just saw him rip guitar solos with Jeff Tweedy in McHenry. Or you could be deep into the Chicago experimental or American finger-style folk scene, knowing both Elkington’s records and those of his collaborators like the back of your hand. However you came across Elkington and/or the show, there’s a warmth and familiarity to his music and performance that was on display.
Beyond the lull of his voice and rhythms, Elkington’s guitar playing follows the same sort of circular patterns of recognition. That’s to say he doesn’t so much shred as he threads, doesn’t so much rip as he slowly tears, introducing a melody, piece-by-piece dismantling it and then stitching it back up. He was the most experimental I’ve ever seen him on Sunday, using his pedals to full atonal effect, cutting the sound in and out, at times almost looking like he was in a fight with his guitar. Similarly, Macri’s bass added a layer of picked shimmer and bowed depth to the spindly lines of “Nowhere Time” and jazzy slumber of “Leopards Lay Down”, and even to the more bare bones material of Elkington’s first album Wintres Woma. (The finger aerobics of “Make It Up” and “Greatness Yet to Come” are set highlights solo; with Macri, they’re given an undercurrent of electricity.)
Despite the poetry of Elkington’s lyrics, the set highlight was an instrumental, “Rendlesham Way”. He shared the story of the song after performing it, the song almost falling apart multiple times before Elkington saved it. It’s named after a treacherous hill in Elkington’s home village in England, down which his father lost control of the car, forced to choose between slamming into a wall or somebody’s house. (Given that Elkington was there to tell the tale, his father chose the house.) The connection between the story and the song? That Elkington admittedly barely knows how to play it, and performing it live makes him feel like he’s making the same choice his father made. For a player, singer, and lyricist as assured as Elkington, it’s hard to imagine him crashing and burning, but his humorous vulnerability was a remarkably human moment among many.
Two sold out shows, even if they were limited capacity and, according to Elkington and Macri, they knew every single person at the afternoon performance, is not something to sniff at at any point in time, let alone during a pandemic that’s all but shut down the live music industry. Like Tweedy, Elkington knew he was lucky to be up there. What he might not have known is that, whether we knew his music or not, we, too, were lucky to receive such soul-lifting comfort and a dose of acquaintanceship.
