Ezra Furman casts a bold (if somewhat glamorous) shadow over modern pop music.
It takes courage and a certain degree of poise to stroll on stage in front of a sold out, Glaswegian, audience wearing a fetching purple dress, a pearl necklace and a wry smile.
He is an intriguing character; a juxtaposition of gender roles and challenge to your way of thinking.
Tonight serving up a big slice of humble pie, but at the same time somehow gloriously ostentatious.
There’s something about him that makes you want to kiss him on the mouth, and it’s not just the ‘bikini red’ lipstick that he is wearing.
It would be churlish to shrug off this new comer as being a fad or perhaps as riding the current wave of ‘gender fluidity’ popularity.
He is an accomplished vocalist whose caterwauling screech can flake between a high-pitched pained croak to a soft caress of a whisper interminably.
His guitar playing is angular, fast paced and at times frantic; this combined with the backing of his big E Street sounding band “The Boyfriends” makes for a captivating live performance.
Furman wastes no time at all by wading into unfamiliar territory by kicking things off with a cover version of The Velvet Undergrounds ‘Rock and Roll’, a track that gets played at breakneck speed as Furman reels about on stage supported by a pair of thing legs and knobby knees.
The crowd is an odd assemblage, mainly older men who seem to be enjoying the spectacle before them.
With brief interludes between songs Furman runs his fingers through his shock of baby blue hair and admits that he is “a little nervous tonight”.
Only then a few moments later, during ‘Tell Em’ All To Go To Hell’, he is seen jumping on to a speaker and dancing – as one audience member mentioned like he was on Soul Train.
It’s this flirting between shyness and being overt that makes Furman look like an early Daniel Johnson meets Dr. Frankenfurter.
He’s an appealing character; kind of like that time you had a crush on David Bowie in Labyrinth and couldn’t really explain it…
“This is a song about making eggs,” he nervously laughs into the microphone, to which before a single note is played the Glaswegian audience roars in appreciation.
“Oh, you like this one?” he sounds somewhat surprised before launching into ‘Haunted Head’ – taken from his third solo album Perpetual Motion People.
It’s a song that doffs its cap to Bo Diddly, but also in equal measure to the scuzzy Chicago underground rock n’ roll of his hometown.
‘And Maybe God is a Train’ is a rollicking track that highlights just how good his backing band are, notably Tim Sandusky on saxophone, who can be seen marching up and down the stage with full aplomb.
Other stand out tracks include; ‘Lousy Connection’, ‘Ordinary Life’ and ‘The Mall’.
During the latter Furman decides to take a bit of a break mid song and starts to form a spoken word interlude about how he is seeking ‘transcendence’. Something that underpins many of his songs and permeates the ethos of the gig tonight.
Whatever you make of Ezra Furman; rock and roll virtuoso, overlord of the outsiders, the one thing that is for sure is that he has an air on geniality, you can believe him when he talks about being uncomfortable in his own body, feeling depressed and even when he almost gave up on music.
But here he is in all his social awkwardness, somehow alluring, certainly intriguing and defiantly full of fire.
Words/Photos: Ang Canavan
