Adam Barnes & Richard Walters
On a mid-September night that feels more Rio than it does Norfolk there’s a beard and its man at the microphone explaining how his entrance was supposed to play out. Moody smoke effects waterfalling from the stage, an arrival atop a winged horse. That sort of thing. This is Adam Barnes occupying the Bicycle Shop’s little music snug and, to be honest, you could tell me this all happened and I might just believe you. On this fever dream of an evening where everyone fights the heat with beer and guitar songs just about everything takes on some kind of haze. Thankfully two excellent acts are on show to cut through it all.
Barnes is joined by the inexplicable jacketed Richard Walters who, somewhat less inexplicably, had a big hit in Poland not so long ago. He does telly and stuff and I’m glad to say exercises far better judgement with his song writing than his warm-weather wardrobe choices. Taking his tracks away from their produced, multi-instrumental recordings and spinning them on stage through more simple means, these songs take on a new warmth. In the room Walters’ voice is a thing more startling than you’d ever suspect, lively and playful and with a falsetto that seems to ring with the full weight of the 90s. Acoustic versions of July Bones and Blossom are nice touches, though I’d love to see these unleashed live in their full glory.
Similarly, Barnes is also stripping back songs that have been committed to record. An understated but quietly charismatic presence, he invites you in to these easy listening folk love stories with his clean, shivering vocal, and a track like Howling starts to shine through the care shown to it in its humbler, more exposed form. Sure, these subjects are well trodden but Barnes pedals an earnestness that means you won’t mind too much, and this in itself marks him out from your average man-with-guitar-sings-about-heartbreak. Hit me with those feelings, Adam. Sadness rarely sounds so pretty. Even without the hallucinated flying horse these two are well worth checking out.
