Expect a flurry of reviews over the next week.
It’s an unpredictable thing going to concerts. You would anticipate that a seventy-two year old man whose voice is occasionally a bit ropey, playing solo acoustic guitar, hitting the odd bum note because he’s made nervous by the venue and using the wrong harmonica on a song he’s been playing for thirty years would be something worse than a disappointment. Well Kris Kristofferson delivered one of the best and most moving shows I’ve ever seen.
Earlier today I heard the Charlatans’ new single on the radio. A voice said “face it boys, you’ve had your moment now stop”. Kristofferson’s last album, released two years ago, which you can see here, stands up to some of his best work. That’s a gift that few possess. His hatred of Dubya and the war energised him. If you listen to the first video you’ll find out what the bit of cod Latin in the title of this post means and just over a minute in you’ll hear him talk about the United States killing Iraqis “in their homes and on their highways and after a decade of crippling sanctions we go in and do it all again”. Though to be fair some of the audience was more muted in their applause for his anti-war, pro-Obama views than the majority.
We’d all come for his peerless back catalogue and it was beautiful. Pretty much every song that you wanted to hear he played. Sunday Morning Coming Down, The Silver Tongued Devil, Loving Her Was Easier….
Kristofferson’s genius is in his language. The alcoholic sings “I fumbled in my closet and found my cleanest dirty shirt” and the squalour is tangible. The man is incapable of writing a song without images of that subtlety. He makes it alright to be an emotional, broken hearted loser who needs a bit of time to put things into perspective. The videos below prove the point
This was an astounding performance from one of the great songwriters of the English language. It was a privilege to have been there. Below are a couple of my typically alienating video clips and two very good ones.
Liam redux 
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