Stretch
10th April 2021
Creative Arts, Napier, New Zealand.
Review by Rob Harbers, feature cellphone photo by Andrew Caldwell.
After a short hiatus from the performing arena, taking time to regroup, rethink and enjoy a spectacular Hawkes Bay summer, local troubadour Stretch is currently embarking on a highly local tour, covering the Bay from Wairoa to Waipawa over the course of four weekends. On this night, he performed in the debut of Creative Arts Napier as a live music venue, setting the stage for an ongoing series of small and intimate gigs.
In the main exhibition hall, surrounded by works of visual art, we were treated to a powerful demonstration of why this form of art is no less worthy of being regarded as a valid form of artistic expression than those that have formed the backbone of the venue’s showings to date.
From the first notes of opening number “Come Back To My Arms”, Stretch held an appreciative audience in his hands for the next couple of hours, performing in the ultimate stripped-back format of one man, an acoustic guitar and a voice. Some understandable nervousness led to an occasional memory lapse when it came to recall of lyrics, but these were but blips in an otherwise flawless performance, and only added to the charm of the evening.
In the last full set that I saw, at the Hawkes Bay Arts Festival nearly 6 months ago, the songs from the 2 albums to date were presented as 2 distinct sets, but in this setting they’re interspersed with each other. The simplicity of the format made clear the fact that underneath the differences in instrumentation on the albums, these are still great songs whichever way you cut it, that speak in the same voice to form a unified body of work, one in which its creator deserves to take pride.
“Less Rock, More Roll” with its driving, bluesy feel filled the room with sound, belying the stripped format, and assisting with the shaking of any nerves. “Lonely Star”, heard without the cello accompaniment which forms such an integral part of the recorded performance, showed a greater degree of space and complexity of playing, while losing nothing of its emotional core.
“House Full of Ghosts” maintained the slow-burning tension, building to a powerful peak while testing the strength of both the makeshift stage and the guitar-this is a man who gets passionate!
The second half of the set commenced with “Last Call For The Road”, with its theme of planning a secret getaway reflecting, in part, the circumstances of its gestation-much of the album being written in a beachside setting around this time a year ago. This period of isolation, outside of the reach of communication, gave rise to some surreal feelings, we were told, upon returning to an urban setting in the midst of lockdown-having not been aware of its advent! The coastal isolation is also reflected in “Shoal Bay Song”, tonight showing a more languid, but reflective feel than the recorded iteration.
Too soon, however, we arrived at the end of the main set, concluded fittingly by “I Know You’ve Been Bad” again illustrating this man’s ability to craft his playing into something that sounds so much larger than it is instrumentally, matching the intensity of the lyrics.
Many a great artist has at least one song inspired by a domestic animal, and this one is no exception-encore leader “Where You’re Going To” describing the movements of tiger-striped Tweedy (or possibly Dave?) without any trace of excessive sentimentality or anthropomorphism. From here we went in to the land of covers, namely Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold”, followed by a rousing version of The Boss’s “I’m On Fire” bringing the night to a fiery conclusion.
There are two further dates in this most local of tours, April 17th at the Paper Mulberry and 24th at Hygge – if you’re able, I’d urge you to get along and witness this latest stage in the evolution of a truly great talent from right here on our own doorstep. As to the future gigs in this venue, more details will be posted as they come to hand.
Were you there at Creative Arts Napier for this fantasticperformance? Or have you seen Stretch perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Note [AD]: Stretch provided passes to Ambient Light to review this concert. As always, this has not influenced the review in any way and the opinions expressed are those of Ambient Light’s only. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product using an affiliate link, Ambient Light will automatically receive a small commission.
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