Gig Review: Nashing of Teeth - Graham Nash Sings The Songs And Tells The Stories Around Their Creation

Gig reviews are making a comeback. According to me! I went to Auckland to see Graham Nash. I’m sure glad I did. Another legend for the list…

Graham Nash

The Civic, Auckland

Friday, March 1

Graham Nash has the songs. And the stories behind them. And that’s what he brings. That’s how it’s billed — although, to be honest, I was expecting a few more deeper-dives down into the life and career, story-wise. Instead, it’s really a survey, stopping off along the way for the obvious hits and a few surprise deep-cuts too.

You can’t complain when he opens with Marrakesh Express, an early Crosby, Stills & Nash scene-setter. And if there was a tiny frog in his throat, it was gone for CSN’s Wasted On The Way. Nash in ridiculously good voice at 82, and cutting an overall figure suggesting he’s a decade (or two) younger. We might not be able to reverse time, but you almost wonder if Nash has found a way to pause it — true too of the sentiment in his songs; it’s largely (of course) from another era. So it doesn’t alway properly resonate.

People there to hear the songs of their youth were happy — but fuck me sideways from Sunday, a song like Cathedral (about an acid trip) and the hippie-dippie lore of To The Last Whale feel so profoundly out of date they’re almost embarrassing. Well, saving them — and us, and Nash (if not the whales) — is the fact that his musicians are utterly astounding. That, and the secret to Nash’s enduring success, he’s not just a great harmony vocalist, as both a song stylist and songwriter he knows where and how to instantly locate and/or create a meaningful, wonderful melody.

His voice is so surprisingly good at times — given the age he is obviously no longer capable of doing the harmony parts as he once could, but he has two multi-instrumentalists effectively covering the parts he used to do; Nash still sounds (mostly) fine singing lead. And there’s a simplicity to his singing, his way of finding the way through the song, and delivering the magic of it (4+20). And if lyrics were never really his absolute strong point, some of them don’t seem quite as silly, and manage to sell the anti-war sentiment of protest from 50-55 years ago (Military Madness, Chicago).

But in the moments where I found myself less excited by the chosen material (Immigration Man, say) I was captivated by a drummer who also played lead and rhythm guitar at times, and, most astounding, played bass with one hand while still playing a full drum-groove one-handed. The lead guitarist picked up at the kit for a song, and was brilliant. He also added mandolin and a range of guitar textures, and at one point a saxophone solo that had all the tonal warmth of Michael Brecker. There was also a keyboardist who played some bass parts on the keys, and a perfect dreamy, creamy organ solo on the Stephen Stills staple, Love The One You’re With.

Nash knew he had the hits — The Hollies’ Bus Stop, his own Wounded Bird — and he knew how good this band was too, so soft in the way they held the essence of each song, never close to overplaying, always seeming deeply connected to the music despite being (at least) a generation removed from its genesis.

I also liked the way he played linking songs — three written by Stephen Stills, and a piece of music composed by David Crosby. He spoke warmly of Joni Mitchell, and Rita Coolidge (both exes) and played songs referencing them.

But I would have liked more stories. The ones we got were fleeting. But I appreciated the way he told the tale of the creation of Our House, his paean to life with Joni Mitchell. It started with a breakfast that day, and then Joni saw a vase she might like to buy in a secondhand store. She made the purchase and when they got home to continue their (albeit fleeting) domestic bliss, he suggested he might light the fire while she put some flowers in the vase she’d only just bought…

That one was a cleverly, beautifully told snippet. The piano chords kicking in and the whole audience lifted by the melody. Nash’s supporting players lending their voice and impeccable musical chops to, again, deliver the goods.

It was a fine set-closer, emotionally poignant, and proof that when Nash correctly leans into the cheese — in the same way that Sir Paul McCartney long ago mastered — it becomes transcendent.

The encores were all good: The CSN&Y masterpiece, Find The Cost of Freedom, then Nash’s CSN business card, Teach Your Children, and his brilliant solo debut’s Chicago to go out with some actual fire.

Look, it was 100% what it was: A boomer legend surveying the past and offering up the goods for an appreciative audience. It was occasionally so much more than than. And it was only a little less once or twice. I was moved to laughter by the lyrics on more than one occasion, and in nothing approaching a good way, but even then I loved the balance of the sound, the melody of the tune, and the history of the event. When I was nearly moved to tears on two or three songs, it felt as good as any gig could.