It is now seven and a half years since I first had the great pleasure of catching Andrew Combs in concert. On that occasion, in the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, the Dallas native who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee was supporting his fellow Music City resident Justin Townes Earle. This evening Combs plays ‘The Ship’, a song he wrote by way of a sad farewell to Earle who passed away two years ago from an accidental drugs overdose. It is a powerfully poignant reflection upon life, death, and whatever may lie thereafter.
‘The Ship’ is taken from Andrew Combs’ fifth full-length album, Sundays which was released only ten days ago. Accompanied superbly by Jerry Bernhardt on guitars and keyboards and drummer Dom Billett, who also turns his hand to bass guitar, Combs performs the album in its entirety this evening. Instead of ending this first part of his set with Sundays’ final track, ‘Shall We Go?’, he opens with that particular song. A little later ‘Truth and Love’ and ‘Adeline’ swap positions, but those relatively minor changes aside he plays the album’s 11 songs in their exact chronological order.
Emerging as it did from the personal impact that the coronavirus pandemic had upon Andrew Combs – a period during which he suffered panic attacks and at one point took to his bed for a fortnight – Sundays serves as a paean to the power of meditation and mindfulness. It is an individual triumph, a quiet redemption in a world that has gone badly wrong. This sense of recovery is no more pronounced than on the final two songs he plays from the new record. ‘Drivel To A Dream’, in which Combs’ voice soars effortlessly into its upper register, bursts with hope and anticipation, whilst ‘I Shall See’ deals with the reality of what then presents itself. It is a remarkable creative achievement.
Having dispatched Sundays, safely, securely and with an undeniable warmth in this live setting, Andrew Combs then takes a carefully measured journey through his recorded past. We get another ten tunes which are drawn from his four previous studio albums, including the delightfully perennial ‘Too Stoned To Cry’ from his 2012 debut long player Worried Man. He tells us that the song has instigated many fresh introductions for him over the past decade and whilst you suspect there may not have been too many newcomers to his music in the audience tonight, it is nonetheless great to hear it once again. He signs off with a couple of richly deserved encores in ‘Rose Coloured Blues’ and ‘Hazel’ – both taken from his third album, Canyons Of My Mind – before heading off down the road for further UK dates in Stoke, London and Nottingham. Andrew Combs then travels to Europe before concluding this tour at the Nashville Nights International Songwriters Festival in Odense, Denmark on 17th September. Catch him if you can. It will be time well spent.
Photo credit: Simon Godley
Go here for a few more photos of Andrew Combs at The Cluny
