I fear that Hit, Don't Miss may hold a terrible curse over the fate of James Vincent McMorrow.
Every time our paths almost collide, the following things happen: A bolt of lightning strikes him down and he loses all short-term memory. All of his treasured musical instruments and equipment get stolen when his car is broken into. He comes down with a debilitating flu, which almost makes him unable to perform the biggest solo gig of his career.
Two of the previous statements are true.
I think it’s fair to say I was/am mildly obsessed with ‘Early In the Morning’ as an album. It even became my Fall Asleep To record for a while. As with foreign language tapes, I now feel I have a deeper unconscious understanding of this Irish folk singer's music than any other fan possesses on the planet. Just saying.
You can imagine how excited I was back in May then, when I had the opportunity to direct an acoustic performance with the man himself.
He drove himself and all his equipment to London in between gigs specifically to sing for me. Yes, me (technically is was for Hit, Don't Miss, but anywho…) The night before his performance, vagabonds broke in to his car and stole all the precious instruments and recording equipment he had used to create his masterpiece. To put it mildly, he was crushed.
Hence we never filmed his acoustic performance and his Cardiff gig that night was cancelled. Was this all our fault? Sad smiley (terrified) face.
Seeing JVM perform live has been in the diary for a few weeks and each time my eyes flicked past Tuesday 31st May, it felt like someone was giving me a mini hug. Cue Tuesday night. What could go wrong? Well put it this way - JVM has never been struck down by lightning, or lost his short-term memory.
It’s ridiculous, but I did feel responsible for the man flu, which struck JVM the morning of his largest solo show. As he dragged himself out on stage, telling the audience he was essentially on the verge of death, I was sure our curse over him had continued. I suggested leaving before he sung a note, fearing that our presence would result in a stuffed leopard falling from the rafters in a freak accident.
Thankfully me and my fellow blogger didn’t leave and he went on to give everything he had in front of us, on that stage. Describing himself as ‘rough around the edges’, we were left in awe by his vocal tone, which seemed to effortlessly surge out of him. I'd like to think that if visible to the human eye, his voice would resemble a soft woolen patchwork quilt. Cosy.
It’s testament to a stand-out gig when a song you’ve heard a hundred times on CD, vinyl or on your MP3 player is transformed by hearing it live. There are rare occasions when something happens within the four walls of a gig venue (or field), which transforms the way you hear a song forever. A mystic spell if you will. This happened to me that very evening in the mighty Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre. ‘Early in the Morning, I’ll Come Calling’ is officially my new aural addiction, it's a musical equivalent to a river of caramel with chocolate button boats. Scrumptious.
Prefaced with a warning that his man flu may prevent him from making it through ‘From the Woods’, his performance of this song burst with a passion and a raw desperation that left us all teary-eyed. This was my highlight of the whole show. Maybe he ramped it up a gear to get him through feeling so ill? Whatever the reason, it was a truly sparkling performance which teetered on the edge of being a beautiful tragedy.
Back on that day in May when James Vincent McMorrow lost the beloved equipment which helped craft his outstanding debut, he was filled with superstitious anxiety (sorry about that again). However, if Tuesday night’s performance was the result of being pushed out of his comfort zone and to the edge of something scary and new, then our curse may well have turned in to a blessing. It could have been worse - leopards could have fallen from the sky after all.
