Don McGlashan, 40 years of producing fabulous New Zealand music and still touring the country from end to end. The Free Flight Tour is taking in a lot of smaller centers as well as a couple of the main cities up north. This time I got to see him at the Rangiora Town Hall, a much shorter drive than most of my concerts I attend.
A seated concert in the old theater part of the town hall complex, the place was almost full, with most of the punters being of a similar age as the man in question himself, the wife and I were feeling quite young.
Don had Anthonie Tonnon as his support act, a name that was familiar but his music was unknown to me. He preformed solo using an electronic keyboard to provide beats and other sounds as well as playing guitar and singing. His music was is a little hard for me to describe but although he was a reasonable singer, his music did not really connect with me or the wife for that matter, so we were both pleased when he finished. He did go down fairly well with plenty of others in the audience.
Don strode onstage after the drinks break waved to the crowd and asked how we were doing before picking up his guitar and giving us a couple of his solo songs from his last couple of records, one I recognized, one I didn't but it set the tone for what was shaping up to be an excellent night. With just an acoustic guitar and some wonderful songs and his awesome voice, Don was magic right from the go as he, after bringing out a drummer to add a bit of weight to the songs, took us through a sample of his entire catalog, from the fantastic "Don't Fight It Marsha, It's Bigger Than Both Of Us" from his early Blam Blam Blam days, a good number of Front Lawn songs, a Muttonbird song or two and even a new one that may have not yet been recorded. Anyhow, It was wall to wall excellence and I knew almost all the songs he played and many of them are classics. New Zealands best songwriter IMO. A fabulous night and an hour and a half of listening to him sing was just not enough.
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