Dan Sartain - London Barfly @ Monarch - 22/10/06
4/5
By: Keri Kennedy
Poor little Dan Sartain, he's a shadow of his old self, eating chicken noodle soup he tells me his car ran out of petrol driving down from Birmingham (Birmingham UK, not his hometown in Alabama). Still, after only an hours' sleep in the car, he's here to please the 170 or so people forfeiting their Sunday roast for a packed Barfly gig. Warmed up and with a bassist and drummer instead of his usual solo act, Dan lays into pretty much the whole of his two albums, giving each the same exposure, and throws in new track 'Gotta Get You Back' to boot.
Louder and brasher than usual, Dan extinguishes any lingering hangovers with his blues country twang of 'Thought It Over' and 'Drama Queens', he's got into the swing of things and last night on the motorway seems a distant memory. With the full band behind him, Dan's songs sound truer to their recorded versions. The aggression of 'Hangers On' is amplified while Dan hollers "...now tell all of your f**king friends to go" over frenetic drums, new track 'Gotta Get You Back' is bass heavy, but real justice is served to 'Tryin To Say' (which Dan usually avoids playing live) - two minutes of desperate, stripped down rock'n'roll.
'Cobras Pt. 2' follows seamlessly, with 'Cobras Pt. 3' taking on a reggae edge to become one of the highlights of the set. Elsewhere, 'Gun vs. Knife' retains its tribal drumming and 'P.C.B 98''s surf guitar solo is better than ever. Another rare treat is an acoustic solo rendition of 'Autopilot', which Dan (with a wry, presumably sarcastic grin) say's is about a depressed room-mate's cat dying. The calypso cover of 'Besame Mucho' lightens the mood again in time for the finale of the surf rock instrumental, 'Love Is Crimson'.
Dan astonishingly ploughed through a 20-song set. You can't argue that the bigger sound the band brings packs a punch, but as a man who's had virtually no sleep, it's clearly a punch that Dan's fully capable of throwing on his own.
Artists in this article: Dan Sartain
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