Feel the Love

The world might have seemed like a shitty place in 2016, but that has not stopped John Grant travelling its length and breadth to perform. As he says on It Doesn’t Matter To Him, “I get to sing for lovely people all over this lovely world.” And starting off in the Far East, the American singer-songwriter opened the year playing China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, moved on to a couple of shows in his home country, before dates in Europe and Scandanavia.

Lately, Grant has appeared at major British festivals such as Glastonbury, T in the Park and Latitude; all in all, he has been a busy boy. But last night at the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, a venue he first played two years ago, it felt like a homecoming. “It’s so good to be back in this amazing building,” he told us. You can have the world but sometimes you just need Art Deco architecture and an adoring audience.

Since launching a solo career in 2010 after the dissolution of alt-rock band The Czars, Grant has produced three albums worth of sumptuous ballads, emotion-drenched confessionals and stomping disco floor-fillers. On his return to the De La Warr Pavilion, last years’ Grey Tickles, Black Pressure album dominated proceedings, as it had when I saw him in Brighton last November; but there was still room for classic tracks such as Glacier and GMF from middle album, Pale Green Ghosts, and an incredible rendition of the title track from his debut, Queen of Denmark.

All of this was rapturously received by the audience who immediately responded, not only to the rich timbre of Grant’s sonorous baritone, but to the band’s accomplished sound. With a rhythm section of ex-Banshee Budgie on drums and Jakob Smári Magnússon on bass underpinning Pétur Hallgrímsson’s versatile guitar and Chris Pemberton’s virtuoso keyboards, the band radiated warmth and solidity. After an encore which included a moving version of The Czars’ song, Drug, Grant asked, “could you feel the love coming from us tonight?” We could – and it was reciprocated.

Humour and Heartache

After five years of celebrated success since his debut solo album, Queen of Denmark, John Grant still seems to have a deep well of wounding experience to fuel his song writing. In Brighton last night - one of only two British dates this year to support new album, Grey Tickles, Black Pressure – he opened his set singing bitterly from the album’s title song: “they say let go let go let go, you must learn to let go, if I hear that fucking phrase again, this baby is gonna blow.” Whilst it was good to hear that the pain and anxiety of relationships is still present, that the humour endures was even more reassuring. And Grant’s ability to contextualise his misery – “there are children who have cancer, so all bets are off, ‘cause I can’t compete with that” – means that he is not guilty of the charge of self-pity.

Despite the abiding timbre of his material – the new album’s title is a mashed-up translation of Icelandic and Turkish proverbs meaning ‘mid-life crisis nightmare’ - Grant seems happy and relaxed on stage. He has a glint in his eye and tells the audience many times how pleased he is to be here. Dressed in a Piccadilly Records t-shirt and baggy jeans, he alternates between standing centre-stage and sitting at his piano next to fellow keyboard player, Chris Pemberton. And when he introduces his band, he is thrilled and honoured that he has an ex-Banshee on drums: “Yes, that is fucking Budgie!”

Having been released only a month ago, it is testament to the quality of the new album that the tracks played from it last night seemed so familiar. The simple, yet beautiful, Down Here has a glorious chord change into a chorus that laments, “what we got down here is oceans of longing, and guessing games and no guarantees”, and Snug Slacks, with its hilarious lyrical riff on Joan Baez, Joan As Policewoman and Angie Dickinson, sees Grant pursuing his love of mutant disco funk. The sumptuous Geraldine, the album’s closer, already sounds like one of Grant’s epic, sweeping ballads and the set’s final song is Disappointing, the recent Number 1 hit single in Grant’s adopted home country, Iceland. No More Tangles, another new classic, features as one of the five songs that make up the encore.

Not that the new material entirely dominates: 2013’s Pale Green Ghosts provides the expansive It Doesn’t Matter To Him, with its long and haunting synthesizer outro, Glacier and GMF. Grant’s voice is superb on these two remarkable songs and the title track of his debut album; and Queen of Denmark is made all the more dramatic for Pemberton’s blasts of discordant synthesizer that lead the band through the song’s histrionic crescendo. I last saw John Grant at Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion in the spring of 2014 and I thought that performance could not be bettered; but at the Dome last night, he surpassed my expectations with a staggering two hour set full of humour and heartache.

Funny Guy

Standing in the queue to get a beer at the De La Warr Pavilion last night, I started to get beard envy. My permanent three-day stubble was no match for the thick, dark lustre of the hipster beards that seemed to be on display everywhere I looked. If I were to attempt such fulsome whiskers, they would be a very unedifying grey and ginger piebald affair. Luckily, American singer-songwriter John Grant seems to be the sort of person who would not be impressed by tributes to his own facial hirsuteness. If the lyrically acid put downs directed at those who have wronged the Denver musician are anything to go by, he is not one to suffer fools gladly.

In ‘Black Belt’, from his 2013 album Pale Green Ghosts, he addresses one of his past tormentors: “You are supercilious, pretty and ridiculous…Etch-a-Sketch your way out of this one, reject.” Coming halfway through a beautiful set at the De La Warr, it was a perfect example of the second-person accusations that fill Grant’s lyrics as he seeks to come to terms with a past of growing up gay, failed relationships, drink and drugs, and a present of being HIV-positive. But set to a thumping electronic beat, it was musically atypical: most of the songs are tender piano-led ballads, with sweeping classical crescendos and sudden bursts of retro synthesiser.

Grant’s relocation to make music in Reykjavik, after the demise of his band The Czars, is well documented. He seems to be at home there and has acquired new friends: the five Icelandic musicians that worked on his last album are all introduced by name with perfect pronunciation. But there are no backing vocals from Sinead O’Connor: she is at home, Grant tells us, waiting to pass a kidney stone. Ouch. I know this from experience.

Despite the deeply personal confessional balladry, and Grant’s rich baritone voice, it is not all sombre. The bitterness is often contrasted with moments of absurd humour. ‘GMF’ is driven by a melody that could have been written by the Carpenters but is hilariously juxtaposed by potty-mouthed lyrics. I sing along to the chorus -"I am the greatest motherfucker that you're ever gonna meet" – with others queuing for another beer, one of whom tells me the song is a favourite with the community choir she sings in. Referring to a time when he suffered from low self-esteem, he dedicates the song to those people who seem to have too much of it. And there are funny couplets: “I should've practiced my scales/I should not be attracted to males”.

In the heartbreakingly stunning ‘Glacier’, the penultimate song in the set at Bexhill, the pathetic metaphor descends hilariously to bathos: “This pain/ it is a glacier moving through you/ and carving out deep valleys/ and creating spectacular landscapes/ and nourishing the ground with precious minerals/ and other stuff”. Grant closes the set with the title track from his first solo album, ‘Queen of Denmark’, with the frustrated and self-deprecating line, “I had it all the way up to my hairline/ which keeps receding like my self-confidence”. And then he goes and encores with Abba’s ‘Angeleyes’; funny guy.