Photo: James Berry
A smattering of punters hang round the bar area of Cambridge’s Junction as The Voluntary Butler Scheme step up for the opening slot of the evening, but it’s not long before the sound of this one man organ/guitar/ukulele/kazoo orchestra has them dashing stagewards. Nicely thought out tunes and endearing delivery make getting here early well worth the effort.
Liverpool’s Sound Of Guns, meanwhile, are a perfectly decent indie-noir band, whose opening salvo, 'Architects', is a skyscraper of a tune, but their noisy inclusion on this otherwise down-tempo bill sticks out like a fart in polite company.
Following the appearance of a neat and sensible looking backing band, the emergence of Adam Green is like watching a crazed, rabid dog let loose in a children’s play area. Belly sticking out under his leather jacket, hair plastered to his face and eyes starting out of his head, Green has clearly just lined his stomach with a meal of boozeburger and chips in preparation for tonight’s set. As he jerks around the stage, arms waving frantically, the band strike up, looking dejected that a lifetime of learning their instruments has brought them here.
Racing through a set which mixes samples of new album 'Minor Love' with earlier material, however, the crowd are soon enrapt. Never missing a lyric despite being barely able to hold, or sometimes even find, the microphone, the power of his creations to draw in the audience is undeniable.
When halfway through the band leave the stage and he performs the heretofore seemingly impossible task of playing and singing on his own, a rendition of 'Give Them A Token' has the entire audience in the palm of his hand, and signed up to the Green army for life.
From there on in, he jokes, he babbles, he tells stories, stagedives several times, and delivers a sweep-through of his catalogue while the crowd look on with undying love. There is the smooth funk of new single 'Buddy Bradley', the bounce of 'Emily' from 2005’s Gemstones, the hilarious anti-ode to Jessica Simpson from the first album, an a capella rendition of 'Old Man River' and an impromptu birthday song for a member of the audience.
As the evening draws to a close, the stimulants beginning to slow in his veins, the band leave him once more to share a final number with the crowd, a poignant, gentle rendition of 'Tropical Island'. Green stares into the middle distance as he sings, thanks the audience, and slopes away.
A poignancy that is dispersed a little as he returns briefly to pluck from the front row the girl who promised him a blow job earlier, fireman’s lifting her back to his dressing room, but still, you can’t have everything.
Adam Green live - February 2010
