The self-styled happiest goth in the world, Hannah Rose Platt doesn’t really fit the murder ballads profile. The Liverpool native barely stops smiling throughout her set. The music she plays along with touring partner bassist Freddie Draper in the main comes from her two releases from 2023. Actually, one of them “Dead Man On The G Train”, begins things here. It is typical of her macabre storytelling style, on the odd angles she finds to colour the tales. “Kissing Room” for example might be the only song inspired by a room that was present in the 1930s in Grand Central station, while “Date Night” imagines that a Greek monster was here in the modern day. Platt has been doing this for a long time, and the old song she plays here, the beautiful “1954” inspired by suffering of an Alzheimer’s patient is more like the material she was playing when last I saw her in 2018. The new-look plat though is obviously extremely talented and delighted to share her songs but also obviously a keen student of music herself she ends with a fun cover of Tom Waits’ “Tango Till They’re Sore”. And the more you think about it, the more she has in common with its author. The same keen eye for words, yet using them in a way no one else does. She doesn’t dwell in the dark, but Hannah Rose Platt rather makes a lie of the old Therapy? track which suggests that happy people have no stories.
As his last song here Chuck Ragan plays “Meet You in The Middle”. In doing so, he rather writes the review for us. Amongst its lyrics are these: “I’ll give you all I’ve got blood sweat and tears” and having watched him for the previous 80 minutes or so that rather sums the show up.
If there’s one thing that categorises Ragan’s performance and quite simply it is authenticity. He’d begun with the sensational “Nothing Left to Prove” and to watch it is to watch a man who lives and breathes every word. His voice is perfect for his music, weatherbeaten and rough, it is like a battered old guitar that you wouldn’t be apart from. He speaks movingly about being away from family before “Rotterdam” and “Vagabond” is a perfect troubadour anthem.
He’s able to slow the pace expertly and when he does for “The Flame And The Flood” the poetry in his words really comes through, “Longwater” is haunting and his use of harmonica is clever, really bringing “Bedroll Lullaby” to life.
He plays “Nomad By Fate” a sort of anthem to being an itinerant road dog, and yet for all the sacrifices he gives the air of a man who would not want to be anywhere else than right here, right now. Performing with his friend Todd Bean (who provides some wonderful pedal steel throughout the evening, really augmenting the songs) there is a happy vibe on stage, the two frequently smiling and laughing together. And there is a real beauty in some of this too, for example “Wake With You.”
There are a couple of songs from Chuck’s other job, being the singer in the wonderful Hot Water Music. Indeed, both “State Of Grace” and “Habitual”, which Todd “wings” prove that although delivered in a totally different way they are hewn from absolutely the same place as Ragan’s solo work – and he wouldn’t have it any other way. This is as powerful as anything on Springsteen’s “Nebraska” and that is one of the finest album’s ever made.
They thunder through “California Burritos” and Something May Catch Fire”, yet there is a real warmth to “What We Leave Behind”. Just before the end the pair play “The Boat” with Ragan explaining it is about believing in music. Although they are all from the heart, this appears to be the most autobiographical. This show was the work of a man with an unshakeable faith in the power of his guitar and these words.
He is back next month with Hot Water Music to celebrate their 30th anniversary in venues across the country, you could say something glib like he was the hardest working man in show business but that would do him a disservice. This is not a choice, Chuck Reagan absolutely needs to do this, that much is certain. Never was the phrase three chords and the truth more relevant than it was here.
