Secret Meeting score: 92

by Philip Moss

As part of the excellent 33 1/3 series, Bloomsbury last month published their 131st edition of the series about Lou Reed’s seminal album, Transformer. In it, the writer, one Ezra Furman, made a case as to why it is, and equally it isn’t, the greatest record ever made. And while the book is an in depth study of Reed’s 1972 masterpiece, it equally gave Furman a chance to reflect on his own makeup and position as an alternative artist- ‘I’m only thirty (note: now 31). The same age, by the way, Lou Reed was when he recorded Transformer. And now perhaps my authoring a book about this particular album at this particular time is starting to make a kind of sense.’

Now to suggest Ezra has achieved a similar status as Reed by the same point would be bordering insanity. Reed, by thirty, had fronted and disbanded the greatest art-rock band of all time, and was about to release one of the great statements of the 1970s. But like Reed, Ezra the person and Ezra the songwriter are one and the same. Which may sound obvious.  But it’s not a given. Like Reed, he’s blazing a trail – as displayed throughout last night’s Manchester show – which has more than a splash of Reed about it.

Autobiographic songwriting is what Ezra does best, and the opening couplet of Cherry Lane and I Wanna Destroy Myself take us back to a dark place, when the then 24 year old songwriter was playing to empty rooms night after night, and whose crippling self doubt left him engulfed with anxiety. But the irony that these songs are now being played to huge audiences isn’t lost, most of all on Ezra, who blasts through five tracks from his Day Of The Dog record, which at the time was largely ignored. Yet, despite growing popularity and swelling audiences, there’s a humility which means he’s still not wholly comfortable with applause.

Haunted Head, from 2015’s Perpetual Motion People, is again deeply autobiographical. Over Tim Sandusky’s roaring saxophone, Ezra unfurls – ‘I’m naked now because it doesn’t really matter when the shades are down. I was born this way, I’ll die this way, I don’t know how I’m ever gonna tell myself the truth,’ which documents a ‘coming of age’ period for the singer who’d not only just started to find critical acclaim, but unlike his hero, Reed, who teetered with sexuality, had also began to display more of a sense of self after ‘coming out’ as bisexual and gender fluid.

Psalm 151, The Great Unknown and Driving Down To L.A (all taken from this year’s Transangelic Exodus LP) show off Ezra’s growing ability to craft beautiful arrangements that go beyond the basic chord/lyric structure, which is emphasised by his confidence to perform a stunning version of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love mid set. No mean feat when it sits comfortably surrounded by his own compositions without overpowering them.

Still his most confessional composition is Ordinary Life, which, in my opinion, is the pièce de résistance in the 31 year old’s canon thus far. And having seen Ezra a number of times over the last few years, tonight’s rendition was the best yet – with the natural reverb of the former Wesleyan church taking the song to another place as Ezra is carried by a choral wave of voices.

‘Thanks for staying with us as our band gets strange. This protest music,’ Ezra called before the Springsteen-esque finale of Suck The Blood From My Wound- with its line of ‘We’ll always be freaks!’ more important than ever as the songwriter’s strength in his own values as his popularity continues to grow part of what makes him so special.

For the encore, Ezra returned with only his guitar for company to perform I Watch You Go By and the Lucinda Williams’ cover – People Talkin’ – which, with its line – ‘People try to tear us apart, keep on walkin’ – again, metaphorically represents his career to date. Before closing with the rambling, Dylan-esque Wild Feeling from his 2011 Harpoon’s album, Mysterious Power, then with a bow and a twirl he was gone.

Ezra may now still only be 31, but this is a star in the ascendancy. A songwriter you can believe in. A songwriter who is making sense of where he fits into the big picture. A songwriter who takes risks, but deserves to go down – like Reed did – as being one of the best of his generation.

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