Darren Hanlon

Darren Hanlon comes back to the Jade Monkey in Adelaide, this time; not with his backing band but just himself and featuring Cory Gary from US band, Desert City Soundtrack, on piano. For support, Melbourne folk singer, Grand Salvo, joins him on most of the tour and he kicks off the hot and humid Friday night at the Jade.

Grand Salvo is one amazing musician. I’ve seen him before, the last time at the Grace Emily, last September. Unfortunately, unlike the Grace Emily, the atmosphere was distracting with the crowd being noisy and talking through his whole set, and even the musician onstage can’t seem to hear his own voice properly. Nevertheless, Grand Salvo still played beautifully, performing tracks from his current record, “The Temporal Wheel” (one of my favourite albums of 2005) like “In The Morning”, plus tracks from his previous albums including my personal favourite, “Sordid Trophy” from 2000’s ”1642 – 1727”. It’s wonderful to hear what could come out of just from one man singing and playing a small acoustic guitar with no pick up.

Shortly after, the act that everyone was waiting for all night, Darren Hanlon came on stage and started playing the banjo to an excited but chilled crowd at The Jade. Some of the crowd at the front were sitting down, which Darren remarked, “felt a bit like primary school” to the bemused audience. Darren played fan favourites like “I Wish That I Was Beautiful For You” and “(There’s Not Enough Songs About) Squash” from 2004’s “Little Chills” album, “Punks Not Dead” and “Hiccups” from 2002’s “Hello Stranger”. He even played older tracks like “Beta Losers” and the classic “Falling Aeroplanes” from 2000’s “Early Days” EP.

Darren performer tracks from his new album that he is recording with Desert City Soundtrack’s Cory Gary next week, with Cory joining Darren on the piano in performing those new songs. One of the highlights of the night was Darren playing “A To Z” from “Little Chills”, and prior to performing the song, dedicated it to the couple at the front row. When he finished playing the track, the guy bends down to his knees and proposes to his partner! He organised the event with Darren a week ago and made everyone in the crowd cheer for the couple. Darren Hanlon is great when interacting with the audience like that, whether its singing “Happy Birthday” and getting the audience invloved, or playing one of his first songs, “Danielle” for a crowd request during the Encore.

It may have been one of the warmest Adelaide nights going, but the fun, chilled atmosphere made it all worthwhile for a great intimate gig on a Friday night in Adelaide.

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