There's a strange, extra-sensory full circle being drawn tonight. It's virtually two years to the day your reviewer saw Joey Burns and John Convertion's former employee Howe Gelb wow Cork's Triskel Arts Centre at a rapturously-received, intimate soiree.
Local Cork quintet BOA MORTE opened proceedings that night, too, and now here they are again, shambling on to shrug into their slightly shapeless, but engaging post-rock. They're still unneccessarily apologetic and entirely devoid of stage presence, but despite this, what they create has the power to transcend, as tracks like the wintry, but likeable "Snowbound Again", the (steady on!) almost strident "Tonight" and the great "Clarence White" attest. They may inevitably remain mentioned in dispatches, but that would be a pity as they do possess something skeletally lovely. This light needs to come out from beneath its' bushel.
Or perhaps they should think of illuminating themselves with day-glo fairy lights shaped like chilis as CALEXICO'S Joey Burns' mic stand does tonight. The Tucson boys are visiting Cork as a warm-up for their Witnness Festival slot and there's an air of quiet expectation building up.
Rumours have been flying around as to how many henchmen Burns and Convertino will have tonight, but they troop out as a duo to tackle the opening "Woodpecker Conduit." It's wonderful, too: short, neat and delicious, but merely a curtain raiser. As it winds down, the other four musicians appear from the shadows to take up trumpet, vibes, stand-up bass and pedal steel. The latter is masterfully controlled by Mr.Paul Niehaus of Nashville's wondrous Lambchop, who were also reviewed almost a year to the day at this same venue. Ooh...spooky!
But back to business. CALEXICO are well-drilled, professional, incisive and magically inventive throughout the following 1 hour 30 minutes plus. One dissenting voice later suggests to me that they were slick and simply going through the motions, but if this was perfunctory playing, then your reviwer would love to see/ hear what a supposedly 'enthusiastic' band would sound like, as from where I was sitting Calexico exuded nothing less than pure joy and pride while attacking their near-exemplary back catalogue with gusto.
The odd little staccato exercise of "Pepita" sets the wheels in motion, but it's when they get to grips with "Frontera" (which also re-invents "Trigger" as a sub plot) that the brushfires really catch. From then on, it's peerless stuff. I swear the lengthy "Sonic Wind" mutated briefly into "Where Water Flows" before they bring it back on track, but it's that kinda night where just about anything goes and one evocative snatch or nuance launches another incredible bout of creativity.
At the eye of the hurricane, Joey Burns is the clean-cut, charismatic, poster boy frontman. He makes dry asides, accepts pints of Guinness with true grace and has a far more commanding voice than the records would suggest. A host of songs confirm this impression: not least "Sunken Waltz", the surprisingly poppy'n'linear "Not Even Stevie Nicks" and the eerie lament that is "Bloodflow."
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Meanwhile, at the back, Convertino is the stony-faced, statuesuque one, but hell, why shouldn't he take on the Charlie Watts mantle when his playing is so unbelievably expressive as it is? The percussive miracles he summons are something to behold, as the mighty thunder he kicks up during the gorgeous Mariachi blast of "El Picador" and the array of brushed offbeats that illuminate the sad-eyed "Woven Birds" amply testify.
This is legendary stuff and wherever they wander their goals are beautifully realised. The full-blooded Latino workouts like "Across The Wire" and fave clapalong encore "Guero Canelo" rub shoulders with edgy, rimshot-fuelled pop ("Quattro (World Drifts In)"), while Augustus Pablo's ghost hovers benignly over the melodica-assisted "Dub Latina" and they even pull off the power play of "Black Heart", where Burns' stinging electric guitar and the descending mellotron lines perfectly replicate the Portishead-style string arrangement from its' recorded counterpart. Marvellous doesn't even come close.
Yet, even this is usurped by the trio of songs closing the main set. We'd been expecting them to attack their version of Love's perennially fabulous "Alone Again Or", but when they finally take it on, it transcends its' billing as the ultimate Mariachi serenade. That they follow it up with a superb, Los Lobos-type hispanic workout and nail it for good with "The Crystal Frontier" in its' wake is enough to have your reviewer feverishly ripping up his bag of superlatives in glorious frustration. When they finally exit - two encores down the line - they receive their SECOND standing ovation of the evening: something even your case-hardened hack has never previously witnessed down the years.
Burns and Convertino have travelled light years since their days bringing wayward firebrand Howe Gelb's mysterious muse to life. The recent "Feast Of Wire" album shows thay have no shortage of sonic wells to sink in their strange, shapeshifting Arizona desert homeland and tonight proved an absolute dream come true for anyone who'd been religiously hoarding their rarefied black gold.
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