Paolo Nutini. You glance at the name and think maybe that’s a new flavor of ice cream. Or maybe gelato. Sounds Italian enough, doesn’t it? But you’d be wrong. Paolo Nutini is, in fact, a 22-year-old singer/guitarist from Paisley, Scotland (his father is of Tuscan descent) who quickly became a UK heartthrob in the wake of the success of his 2006 pop/soul debut album These Streets.
I recall seeing the video for his tune “New Shoes” on the VH1 Top 20 Countdown one Saturday morning and sat there thinking, who is this guy, and why haven’t I heard of him before? As evidenced by the estrogen-charged atmosphere at the 9:30 Club on July 23, there were many who have been fans since his first album-length offering and have liked what this Scot has to say and sing about.
His sophomore effort released June 1 in the UK, Sunny Side Up, is a different animal from These Streets entirely. It’s less mainstream and more soul- and folk-influenced and has received mixed reviews in the British press for its perceived lack of accessibility compared to the previous album. Also, Nutini produced the album himself – often the Achilles’ heel of many artists. I’ve been told by outsiders that D.C. crowds are fickle and aren’t as vocal and responsive to their musical heroes as those in other towns; I’ve been to enough gigs in the area to know this definitely isn’t the case, and it depends on who the performer in question is. Having heard some of the new songs on his MySpace, it wondered how these less poppy songs were going to fly with an audience that might not be familiar with the new material and only be expecting the hits from the first album.
Two American singer /songwriters opened for Paolo Nutini this night – Tampa, Florida native Matt Hires and Nashville-based Texan songstress Erin McCarley. Hires reminds me of another “Matt” with one T, Mat Kearney. This is intriguing, especially if you consider that both singers have had songs featured prominently in ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and with that exposure, both of them gained attention and new fans. He even took the stage wearing a similar kind of hat that Kearney wears (but I don’t remember whether Mat Kearney got on stage barefooted at Constitution Hall in May). There’s something endearing about the way Hires emotes that makes him more likable to me than the other solo male pop singer/songwriters currently out there. Also, when someone’s out there with an acoustic guitar and nothing else to fall back on, you know they’re going to bring it.
He started his set with his own version of that classic pop standard, “You Are My Sunshine”. “Pick Me Up”, the third song in Hires’ set, was tender, clearly written and sung by a pained man, distraught and upset, and we the audience could feel this. Before launching into “A Perfect Day”, Hires spent a brief moment tuning his guitar, prefacing the tuning with “tuning a guitar…this is when most musicians would tell a funny story. But I’m not good at doing two things at once. If I tried telling you a funny story, we’ll be here all night.” This of course elicited laughs from the crowd.
A sprightly rendition of MGMT’s “Kids” was definitely an unexpected surprise; Hires began the song with jaunty whistling (replacing the synths in the original version) and continued whistling throughout it. His vocals in the closing number, “State Lines”, reminded me a bit of early-era Oasis Liam Gallagher. (By the way, that’s a compliment, folks, not a slight.) Hires’s debut album Take Us to the Start will be available on iTunes on July 28 and the physical CD will be available in stores August 25.
Matt Hires’ Set List:
You Are My Sunshine (pop standard)
Honey Let Me Sing You a Song
Pick Me Up
Out of the Dark
A Perfect Day
Kids (MGMT cover)
State Lines
Singer/songwriter Erin McCarley has been compared by some to Regina Spektor and Sara Bareilles. I don’t see the connection – for one, McCarley doesn’t play the piano (her collaborator/producer Jamie Kenney does), and two, Spektor and Bareilles don’t have the sultry voice that McCarley has. When you see her come out on stage and strap her guitar on (leather strap festooned with feathers), you wouldn’t imagine that such a deep, pleasant voice could come out of her. McCarley’s album Love, Save the Empty came out on January 9, and I really enjoyed the first single from it, “Pony (It’s OK)”, with drummer Josh Robinson and pianist K.S. Rhoads coming together with McCarley to create a perfect piece of pop. The tune directly following it, “Blue Suitcase”, was described by McCarley, with a knowing laugh, as “the one bitter song of the night.”
Like Hires before, she also ventured forth with a cover: Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”, accompanied by human beatbox from piano/synth player Rhoads. This cover was just as improbable – or maybe more so than Hires’s earlier MGMT cover? – and those in the know like me sang along and contributed the repeated “doo doo doo doo, doo da-doo doos”. It was more than a little unsettling to see little kids around me who obviously had absolutely no reference point to this song, but McCarley was unfazed, she had a winsome smile throughout her performance. McCarley ended her eight-song set with “Pitter Pat”, with the lyrics “pitter pat, the angel on my shoulder is haunting me tonight / tick tock, the clock is getting louder ready for me to decide” – just as gorgeous and sweet as herself.
Erin McCarley’s Set List:
Sticky Sweet
Pony (It’s OK)
Blue Suitcase
Lovesick Mistake
Tom’s Diner (Suzanne Vega cover)
Hello Goodbye
Live, Save the Empty
Pitter Pat
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to a gig where I’ve felt as though my ears were going to be blown out by the sheer force of screaming from enthusiastic (and usually most often than not female) fans. I was really surprised by the wide range of ages I saw at the show, because I expected Paolo Nutini’s core fan base in America to be women younger than myself – the type of fan most likely to find his videos and music online. I was mistaken: judging from my vantage point on the floor, crammed up at the front were the most vocal fans; older than me, they had brought their daughters with them. For sure, women outnumbered men 5 to 1 (at least), and as I looked backwards and upwards from where I was standing, the place was packed.
I was completely unprepared for the impact of the energized shrieking from the audience when Nutini and his band, the Vipers (all six of them, including a trumpeter/pianist and an harmonica player), finally emerged. The first song out of the gate was the guaranteed to please “New Shoes,” which tested Nutini’s ability to run around the stage, singing along quickly to the song’s quick pace, and ended was a drawn-out jam.
Sure, some of the new songs are cheesy – are polka rhythms “in”? Has polka ever been “in”? Is this 2009? – and some sound like throwbacks to some bygone era for their crooning quality. Songs like “Chamber Music” and “Candy” could have been sung by Bob Dylan; similarly, “No Other Way” sounded like Nutini was channeling Al Green. But if you’d asked any of the Paolo Nutini fans there that night what they thought, I’m sure they would have pledged their undying devotion to him that night.
The highlight of the gig for me was an all-out raucous version of “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty” during the encore, the driving rhythms from the band feeling like a force of nature, combined with the crowd singing along eagerly with every word uttered out from Nutini’s lips. Nutini and his band gave the D.C. audience everything they had, and in return, the audience cheered and applauded to the music in an equally giving way. So it seems only appropriate that he closed the show with a cover of Rodriguez’s “Forget It” with the lines “so thanks for your time / and you can thank me for mine“, which is a good summation of what happened at the 9:30 Club that night Paolo Nutini and his band came to town.
Paolo Nutini’s Set List:
New Shoes
High Hopes
Alloway Grove
Pencil Full of Lead
Loving You
Mellow Down Easy
Last Request
These Streets
Growing Up Beside You
Chamber Music
Candy
Funky Cigarette
Coming Up Easy
Down in Mexico
10/10
No Other Way
//
Tricks of the Trade (acoustic solo)
Sleepwalking
Jenny Don’t Be Hasty
Forget It (Rodriguez cover)
Tour dates
Jul 25 - Theatre of Living Arts / Philadelphia
Jul 27 – Vogue Theatre / Indianapolis
Jul 28 – Variety Playhouse / Atlanta
Jul 29 – Cannery Ballroom / Nashville
Jul 31 – Opera House / Toronto
Aug 01 – St. Andrews Hall / Detroit
Aug 02 – Vic Theatre / Chicago
Aug 03 – Weesner Amphitheater / Apple Valley, MN
Paolo Nutini: website | myspace
Matt Hires: myspace
Erin McCarley: website | myspace
