Hanbury Club, 12th November 2008
The alt-country, bad-guy-turned-good cult figure Micah P Hinson, is a modest looking man. Baseball cap, hillbilly plaid shirt, eyes squinting through large, dark framed geek-glasses out into the sold out Hanbury Club, at tonight’s eclectic audience.
Shuffling shyly onstage alongside his quiet banjo accompaniment, it appears to take Hinson a little while to even notice the audience in front of him, as he tunes and re-tunes his guitar. The expectant stares of the excited crowd are eventually met, however, with a smile, a quick joke, and a dedication to his wife, now lost in the crowd. Hinson projects a quiet contentment at his success: it is not that he expected a sell out, but he is not wholly surprised.
The pair waste no time working their way relatively quickly through Hinson’s newest musical offering “Micah P Hinson & The Red Empire Orchestra”. Opening with “Come Home Quickly, Darlin’”, followed shortly by “I Keep Havin’ These Dreams”, and the simple innocence of ‘When We Embraced’; all are met with pleasure and applause from the audience who watch in natural and awed silence. Innocent is probably a strangely fitting word to use for this Texan singer-songwriter – when you see him in person. It is not that Hinson hasn’t had his fair share of bad times; the private darkness aching through the dignified and sometimes upbeat songs is ubiquitous, and immediately palpable as his croaky southern drawl drifts dreamily into song, and his eyes lose their focus. What ultimately prevails however is a sense of enlightenment, of a helplessly amiable young man grinning and joking between songs.
As if to accentuate this point exactly, Hinson pauses to tell a charming and roundabout story about his involvement in “Dream Brothers” – a Tim and Jeff Buckley tribute album, which then leads to a superb cover of “Yard of Blonde Girls”. The dark and somewhat heavy percussion-led original is transformed in Hinson’s hands into a beautifully delightful and light-hearted piece. He’s got a definite eye for detail and uplift, even amid subjects of an often sad nature.
My thoughts were not entirely positive, however. It is not exactly that the gig felt too long, or that Hinson’s relatively short, quietly touching collection of songs were not enough – but I couldn’t help feeling that the end was quite a relief. The songs had begun to share quite an overbearing similarity. Nevertheless, there was a distinct lack of disappointed faces in the audience, and calls for an encore followed him off the stage and out of the door.
Words by Rose Hales
