As the erstwhile ‘Finger, Bernard Fanning, is about to launch a full album and tour with Paul Dempsey – as Fanning Dempsey National Park, which of course you already know – and possibly recreate himself as a suited, electro-leaning art popster, it is timely to look back at an earlier remaking of the man.
Or partial remaking, some might argue. Or change of clothes anyway.
In any case, Wind Back Wednesday takes the bus into the city in 2016, well into the post-Powderfinger solo career of the finest medium-pacer from Brisbane never to open the bowling at the Gabba, and says is this sweet baby Bern?
(Incidentally, the lounge-related lines here pre-date JD Vance’s current, ahem, affection for couches et al. But if you want to read more into it, go for it.)
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BERNARD FANNING
State Theatre, October 22, 2016
THAT BERNARD FANNING IS PART of the furniture - the solid, loved, that’s not going out in any council hard rubbish collection any time soon elements – of many people’s lives should not surprise.
There was that 20 years as the self-effacing front of Powderfinger, a rock band which disguised itself very well as pop ballad specialists and became fixtures without ever demanding it. And now he’s three albums into a solo career where he’s been some kind of Osmond in music and deed (a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll, and nary a bad public moment) without ever exploiting it.
His audience has grown with him in several ways: thicker and less inclined to fashion’s au courant moves even as he has remained thin but stuck with his fashionably un-fashion conscious look; chatty in interjections as he has become more comfortable talking and being the centre of attention; more inclined to expressions of love (“I’d turn for you Bernard,” said one burly voice) and affection as he has become willing to receive them.
It’s a good relationship, commercially and emotionally speaking, one which will sustain both for some time. It’s also something of a self-fulfilling relationship, musically-speaking, one which narrows the range of interest if you’re not quite ready for the Barcalounger just yet.
Fanning in concert pleased rather than pushed, was mild when he might have been assertive, smoothed rather than ruffled. It’s what the audience wanted and he did it well.
Opening with Emerald Flame, which also opens his current album, Civil Dusk, with grace and even temper, and climaxing with Powderfinger’s great ballad of pre-middle age crisis, These Days, segueing into what he described as one of its inspirations, Prince’s Purple Rain (though to me it owes a greater debt to the purple one’s Sometimes It Snows In April), the bulk of the night was gentle.
Country fiddle engaged, some nice “everyone around a single microphone” backing vocals impressed, but that Steve Miller Band’s Jet Airliner (sung by guitarist Andrew Morris, one part of a very good band) and his first hit, Wish You Well, were the only times when on-stage energy genuinely fuelled audience energy, summed up the show’s intent.
His longtime band may have begun by name and inclination in the thrall of Neil Young in his Crazy Horse years, but the contemporary Fanning is more attuned to another figure of Californian ‘70s, James Taylor. Which is nice for everyone: solid, loved, not being thrown out any time soon.
Maybe it doesn’t matter then that it’s just not likely to attract or thrill the inquisitive eye (or ear) of those not already comfortably ensconced for the duration.
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