The Enterprise, Camden, Thursday 17th February.
Somehow Willy Mason hadn’t registered on my radar so far. Such an annoying event happens occasionally, thanks to the NME being so idiotic that it’s all but unreadable these days, but until now I’ve never felt that I’ve really missed out on anything or anyone. But now I’ll have to pick it up from time to time to make sure such an occurrence isn’t repeated, as Willy Mason is one of the finest singer song writer’s of the decade so far.
It’s an evening of contrasts, however, for support artist Plan B is quite unlike Mr Mason, despite initial similarities. Both tonight play acoustically, and both perform very honest material. But Plan B’s genre is acoustic hip hop, of the kind that’s meant to be controversial, it’s no accident that this will most likely offend many. That’s not to say that it was just darn stupid, however, what he’s got to say is of interest, but lyrically it’s all a bit of a mess.
Willy Mason is thankfully far more gentle, expressing a dry laconic wit between the songs he plays tonight. His song’s are equally as provocative as Plan B’s, though fortunately in a much more positive and affecting way. More importantly Mason’s also far more intelligent, casting his eye over a large selection of different themes and ideas within his songs. Take some of the lyrics from his recent semi-hit Oxygen for instance – “I wanna see through all the lies of society / To the reality, happiness is at stake / I wanna hold up my head with dignity / Proud of a life where to give means more than to take / I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality / Where paper is all that you're really taught to create” - If there’s more insightful lyrics being written right now, then I’ve not heard them. Indeed I could have quoted any verse from the song to represent this.
With all of his songs, lyrically he’s powerful but with a refusal to patronise, and Willy’s soft fragile vocals suit the songs perfectly, they insidiously gets inside your head and just won’t leave, but don’t worry, you won’t want them too. The venue’s hot and sweaty, small but packed, yet silent, no one wants to miss a second of Mason’s seductive songs. At times the lyrical content’s partly political, something alternative music’s been crying out for for too long now. I’ve a lot of time for love songs, and Willy sure knows how to write those, but too many bands do nothing else, and the mixture Mason delights us with tonight is more than refreshing. It’s not just lyrically that Mason’s varied either, at times the songs have a distinctly Bluesy feel to them, but others are alt.folk, bluegrass or alt.country, and others are straightforward indie in a man with a guitar kind of way. And there’s not a bad song amongst them, nor even an average one. Great’s the worst he does tonight. Which you’d be idiotic to complain about.
In this time of over earnest emo, all too familiar nu-metal, and cool but empty rock, Mason’s come along at just the right time to prove that intelligent music is what we need right now. His debut album is released tomorrow (February 28th), and if like me you’d never heard of him before, this is your chance too. You’ll be making an enormous mistake if you don’t do so.
Alex Finch.
Click here to talk about Willy Mason or Plan B on the Garbled forums.
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