Nick Lowe raves on with a crazy feeling

If Buddy Holly had lived to 70 and had not taken that fateful flight on American Pie in 1959, he might have ended up looking like English country rock star Nick Lowe.

Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets brought the Enmore Theatre audience to their feet.

• When Zen meets jazz
• The Devil and the high top C
• Beethoven to the power of 3
• Fine display of martial arts

With his silver hair, horn rimmed specs and that ability to write drop-dead gorgeous country ballads alongside driving rockabilly tales of love gone wrong, the singer-songwriter could be mistaken for a Whovian double of the 22-year-old star from Lubbock, Texas.

But the chances are his backing band the Crickets would bear no resemblance to Lowe’s collaborators on his latest Australian tour, Los Straitjackets, four dudes laying down deadly surfing guitar licks dressed in suits and Mexican wrestling masks.

Back in Sydney for the first time since 2012, Lowe and the band zipped through 22 numbers which ranged over the decades – as far back as the 1960s with some of the Straitjackets’ licks evoking the guitar bands the Ventures and the Shadows.

Concise and leanly structured number followed number over the course of the next 90 minutes, Lowe commenting that all his songs were short and the audience might hear one or two top 10 hits, plenty of favourites from “the catalogue” and one or two new ones, adding that they shouldn’t be alarmed – “they sound just like the old ones”.

CLASSICS

The set was broken up by mini-bracket from Los Straitjackets, mainly originals which incorporated familiar licks from the ‘60s and ‘70s. A big crowd-pleaser was their instrumental take on the Easybeats’ Friday On My Mind with Harry Vanda’s guitar riff lovingly replicated.

Lowe standards – Cruel To Be Kind, Shting-Shtang, Love Starvation and When I Write The Book – rubbed shoulders with newer material from his hot-off-the-press collaboration with his band, Walkabout, with Blue On Blue and Raincoat In The River destined to become instant classics.

A reminder that Lowe helped fuel the career of Elvis Costello came towards the end of the night with a lovely, simple rendering of his own (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Love, Peace And Understanding, which the punk star recorded on the Armed Forces album.

And for an encore Lowe returned the compliment by performing Costello’s bittersweet ballad Alison, armed only with his acoustic Gibson.

The evening was opened by American country singer-songwriter, Jim Lauderdale, an old friend of Lowe’s, who set the scene perfectly with an acoustic solo set which ranged from hilarious bad woman blues like Hole In My Head to King Of Broken Hearts, a swooning tribute to two of his heroes, Gram Parsons and George Jones.

DETAILS

● CONCERT Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets

● WHERE Enmore Theatre

● WHEN February 16