As the gig ended and people filed from the church, a guy in front tossed his plastic wine glass into the gutter and smiling, slung an arm around his friend. “Man, that guy’s got me through some really fucked up shit,” he said in a half-slur, as their foreheads touched and they stumbled off down the street and, though for the most part red wine and sincerity tend to go hand-in-hand, it was a beautifully raw moment, because whatever he’d seen or felt, no matter what sliding scale of loss it sat on, I really believed that listening to Lanegan’s lyrics and that soft, scratchy baritone had helped him to pass through to the other side. 

An hour previously, as Lanegan and his stripped down band opened the performance in St George’s church with the slow-picked amble of 'One Way Street', I remember the last time I’d listen to that song. Splayed on a sofa in Tangier after 56 hours in a neighbourhood on the fringes of the city interviewing stab victims and young African men who’d be attacked, beaten or burned by Moroccan gangs high on glue fumes. Shot-through with exhaustion and trying to wash my brain clean whilst fighting off the midnight heat, the opening lines flooded through my headphones:

     “The stars and the moon aren’t where they’re supposed to be. 
     And a strange electric light falls so close to me.” 

Out on the street below, a few neon lights fizzled and hissed as the heroin dealers hung in the shadows as shaky figures came and went.  Hearing the opening lines played in sedate Brighton put me straight back there. And throughout the next few years, those words got me through a lot, too. A kind of soft decompression. A warm, rich womb-like blanket of sound and a rough tumble of images punctuating each song, like the broad strokes of an oil painting. It seems pointless to review an artist whose work and words and low croon is best suited to absorbing on a deeply personal level by rambling in music-speak about the sound of the guitars, the thin wall of reverb echoing through the church, the back catalogue of songs performed or the endless histrionics of pop culture. Nevertheless, a church is the perfect place to see him live. And this sold out gig marked a new UK tour by Lanegan through a series of small, intimate venues, perfectly suited to his blend of thick, gasoline-doused Americana and crooning ballads of love, loss, addiction and isolation.  

And as the tracks continued, moving through a selection of material from 2001’s Field Songs, 2012’s Blues Funeral, his current album Phantom Radio as well as 2013’s critically acclaimed Black Pudding, hearing him live was no different to the recordings. Every frequency accounted for. Every note in place. Soft, scratchy, low and hard. But for an artist who first came to light in the late 80s as the front man for Seattle Sub-Pop grunge band The Screaming Trees and has worked tirelessly throughout the decades, collaborating with artists like Kurt Cobain, Moby and Bell and Sebastian’s Isobel Campbell – and despite twelve solo albums – it’s only by mentioning “that gravelly singer from Queens of the Stone Age” that makes most recall who you’re talking about. He’s an artist who attracts the die-hards and glancing around, the mix of people present was a cross section you’d only really imagine to find at a gig by an age group defying artist like Leonard Cohen, a figure I have no trouble at all comparing him to. The pews of the church were stuffed with grungy couples in their 20s with scuffed-up leather jackets, the odd hipster sporting a lumberjack shirt and Brylcreem. Older men and women- well-dressed and white haired  – sipping red wine: the whole spectrum. 

As the gig progressed, the volume peaked. Two electric guitars crunched drumless through tracks like 'The Grave Digger’s Song', and an epic, howling version of 'The Jesus Program' all punctuated by a few sparse moments of silence and a few husky 'thank-you's. And after the gig, as people lined up to chat to him, I noticed the sheer amount of fans talking amongst each other about how they’d followed him from venue to venue across countries and across years. And, though he may not be anywhere near as huge and influential an icon as he should be, there’s deeper victory at work in his music. That is the victory of words and songs fusing intimately with fans and humans who know what is means to lose, adding shape and shade to feelings of isolation – for fans and undoubtedly for himself – as a way to cut through them. 

Guest writer James Rippingale

Website: marklanegan.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/marklanegan