Bill Callahan
National Concert Hall
★★★★★
“You don’t want to know where I was last night,” Bill Callahan says, as he takes his seat on a pared-back stage amid drumpad, cymbal and guitar. But where he was, was somewhere else in Europe, deep into a tour, with Dublin as his last stop. Reflective and wry, he shows no trace of fatigue, but perhaps there’s a bit of world weariness from an artist who understands not only what the world could be, but actually is.
And what that is, is “ordinary things” as he notes on Jim Cain, an extraordinary opening song, which distils Callahan’s essence, with the narrator’s ambiguity, and a searching for a dreadful beauty, “the darkest of nights, in truth, still dazzles”. Underpinned by intricate guitar, it sets the tone for a show that is as storied as it is rich.
Cold-Blooded Old Times is stripped down to its core, Say Valley Maker is insistently sad, The Well retains an earthy, stomping grace, and Let’s Move to the Country slowly reveals its complicated nature, managing to be both avant-garde and relatable, which is where Callahan’s gift really lives.
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He tells us that since he has been on tour, his daughter has learned to swim, “I miss that”, reminding us of the hidden cost of this endeavour. “Show me the way” he asks on Eid Ma Clack Shaw, and many of his compositions contain this central plea, which is really about dealing with the ugly business of living, whether acknowledging the “flaws in a jewel” as on 747, or that “all this leaving is never ending” on Riding for the Feeling, so “do what you gotta do” he says, on the muddied brilliance of Partition.
His voice remains peerless, a lamp that illuminates the swampy Delta-blues of the brilliant Sycamore. Lyrically dexterous and swaying like one of the trees he sings of, he draws a map of a glorious, curious life, “all you want to do is be the fire part of fire”. That fire is there in the howls on Coyotes, and on Too Many Birds, which swirls us to inevitable devastation.
Callahan brings us back to nature, both the Earth’s and our own, reflecting each other like an emotional hall of mirrors. It is to be found in the cattle and “rudimentary thoughts” of Drover, as he wonders who the “beasts” really are, or in his search for the soul of the US down “that Georgia line” of In the Pines, and he embodies what he seeks, an idea of the United States that is aspirational, containing such largesse.
He returns to the stage for an encore, even inviting requests, a messy reminder of his immense catalogue of songs, but eventually settles on Rock Bottom Riser, bringing us back 20 years, where the words “left” and “love” are used to delicately decimate, and his “foolish heart” sees him “diving into the murk”. In doing so he finds a kind of salvation, and in turn, passes it to us.
