Jake BuggCorner Hotel, Melbourne
Sunday 28th July 2013
By Christopher Lewis
When your music soundtracks a festival in a country you have never been to, you know the hype machine is in overdrive. Jake Bugg’s sudden rise to fame is one of those rock’n’roll fairy-tale myths that isn’t actually supposed to occur outside Cameron Crowe films. After recording a demo of a slow, haunting folk ballad called 'Country Song', 18 year old Jake was contacted by the management of recent Oasis-divorcée Noel Gallagher and asked to support his UK solo tour.
We might sometimes forget this fact in Australia, but merry ole England still regards big brother Noel as the closest that generation got to re-enacting The Beatles. So for a kid from the council estates in the East-Midlands, this was the equivalent of zombie John Lennon calling to ask if he want to come over and jam with Yoko. A media-war with One Direction, a Number 1 album and pot-shot at the Nashville scene later and this precocious singer/songwriter is selling out his Splendour in the Grass sideshows months in advance, whilst enlisting heavyweight (pun!) Rick Rubin to produce his upcoming second album.
The Oasis leg-up is more telling than it might seem. Both Noel and Jake leant on their humble, working class backgrounds as a means to grow their blue-collar fan base and Liam Gallagher’s anti-establishment swagger inhabits the boy as he sneers down his microphone under his black mop fringe. He doesn’t portray the smarmy arrogance of the man NME dubbed The Greatest Frontman Of All Time. On the contrary he seems quite reserved and meek; but he does mimic Liam’s stubborn stage presence, with his feet glued to the same spot for the 58 minutes he is on stage and his inter-song banter kept to a minimum. You don’t come to a Jake Bugg gig for the showmanship.
Opening with the slow-burning (pun #2!) 'Fire', Jake wastes little time greeting his British ex-pat crowd before beginning the autobiographically influenced 'Trouble Town'. Musically, Bugg resides safely inside the boundaries of folk and its grittier siblings. Bluesy scale riffs balance out softer, intricate guitar play and whilst this may excite few in a zeitgeist obsessed with bedroom produced dream pop and shoe-gaze, his skill is nonetheless impressive.
Without naming names, most singer-songwriters simply do not have the technical skill to play complex lead guitar parts for their live shows and it is in this respect that Jake belies his years and proves his hype worthy. Several new, unnamed songs throughout the set as well as 'Seen It All', 'Taste It' and closer 'Lightning Bolt' allow Bugg’s prowess on his Fender Telecaster to shine through, as guitar solos as well as improvised riffs and extended outros show off his considerable talent. His restraint was palpable and no moment felt over-done or out of place, as a guitarist and frontman in one, Bugg always knew when to reign it back and not let a song slip into self-indulgence. A testament to this is the fact that arguably the best, most affecting moment of the night needed no flair at all — the mesmeric 'Broken hushing a lairy crowd into stunned silence.
With only the one album to his name, the set-list is a rudimentary affair, with three, yet to be recorded tracks being previewed and a powerful cover of Neil Young’s 'My My, Hey Hey' opening his encore. Whether there was a reason for Jake to choose a song that haunted his idol for so long after Kurt Cobain quoted it in his suicide note is unclear, though for a boy who has not grown up in the most luxurious environment only to find himself worlds away at the age of 19, the sentiment was fitting.
Those coming to The Corner Hotel seeking experimentation and sonic nuance would have been disappointed; Jake Bugg is not and clearly does not want to be that kind of beast. He is heavily indebted to his 1950’s rockabilly heroes, Chuck Berry et.al and revels in using every song to pay homage to them. But like contemporary Nic Armstrong and his fantastic album The Greatest White Liar, Bugg proves that retro-folk and rock’n’roll need not be naff or cringe-worthy. In the context of his age, his performance as a guitarist was phenomenal and as a songwriter, promising and with the straightest of faces Jake announced himself in Australia as someone to take note of.
Christopher Lewis
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