The first time I see a musician, it will usually be in some tiny dive.
Maybe a few months later, I’ll see that same person in a bigger space, with a more devoted crowd.
And, later still, they might turn up on a massive stage at a festival – and I’ll be that annoying wanker your mate brought along, saying “yeah, I’ve been into them for ages.”
But I got to Reb Fountain backwards and upside down. The first time I saw Reb she was a tiny figure across a field, struggling to drive her words through the Kāpiti wind. I thought she was great even then, but the festival PA was struggling and the acoustic arrangements were fighting the weather.
A year later, after a few tracks had knocked me over on Radio Active and RNZ and I’d bought the self titled album, I saw Reb from a seat twenty rows back in Wellington’s State Opera House, and watched entranced as she prowled the cavernous stage and made that gorgeous space her own.
And last night, I arrived at where I should have begun, watching Reb and her band play in the low-ceilinged sweat box of San Fran – and this time, finally and incontrovertibly, she blew me the fuck away.
++++++
I promised the promoter I could get some photographs for this story – and my selection of lenses ain’t great, So I figured I’d get right to the front, in whatever the Reb Fountain equivalent of a mosh pit is, and get my shots from as close as I could.
That worked out great for opening act Lost Bird – Ali Whitton to his mum – who warmed the place up with a set of originals that all landed exactly where he was aiming them.
Whitton is a terrific writer, with a nice way with a poignant denouement and enough grit and fire in his generally sunny and loved-up ballads to make the crowd start to tune in and really take notice.
It’s always great to see a support act win an audience over and, although Wellington crowds are usually pretty lovely anyway, Whitton had the San Fran crew happily on his side by the time he ripped out the closer – which I think really is called “I’m a fucking Bumble-Bee”. And fucking bravo to that.
If you’re a Connor Oberst or a Damien Rice fan – I don’t think Whitton would mind the comparisons – then the next time you see the name Lost Bird in your feeds or on your café’s poster wall, get along and watch him. I reckon you’ll be as happy as I was.
++++++
Whitton leaves to sustained applause and Dave Khan, Karin Canzek and Earl Robertson are onstage almost immediately. There’s a muffled roll across the snare from Robertson and then Reb just…appears. One moment the space behind the microphone is in shadows, and then she is stepping into the light, and the first lines of Swim To The Stars are setting sail to the back of the suddenly hushed and attentive room.
Hawks and Doves follows, and then a beautifully arranged Fisherman, before Beastie – also from Iris – comes into its own with some simple thunder from Canzek and Robertson, and Reb stomping out the beat like the few square meters of stage she has to work with are desert sands beside a crackling fire.
It’s a hypnotic couple of minutes and if there was anyone in the room still not sure of the power Reb can summon when she’s in the mood, then they were in no doubt now.
From where I’m standing, hard up against the stage as Reb throws her words to the back of the bar and into Cuba Street beyond, her voice and her presence are nearly overwhelming.
After a minute of chat and introduction – “I fucking hate talking on stage” – Hey Mom goes winging out to Reb’s family in North America, as her eyes welled up with some hard earned tears.
New track (I think?) Memorial is also destined to be a live standard, but every song in the set was a highlight in its own way.
Don’t You Know Who I Am is held back for an encore, of course. It soared and swooped and stripped the paint off the walls as it always does.
But this show is happening the day after the US election and there is anger and grief in the air. There is no depression or defeat being voiced on the stage though. Don’t You Know Who I Am has been a stadium-sized stormer since the day it was written, but tonight it is a fuck-you anthem that knocks our breath out.
How Bizarre was a welcome closer and come-down, and an unexpected sing-along for a sated and transfixed crowd.
++++++
To see Reb Fountain on any stage, of any size, in any venue, is to be in the presence of a world-class singer and songwriter who can take any of your Cat Power or Patti Smith comparisons and burn them to ash in her own sweet time.
But to see Reb that close, on that Thursday night, in the best surviving venue in my hometown, was one of those gigs I’ll always remember I was at. Kia Kaha.
—-
Words and Images by Graeme Tuckett
