Shades of Berlin Bowie and Ian Curtis: Hamish Hawk, at Usher Hall, reviewed

I am a regular attendee at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh’s most ornate and venerable concert venue. On more than one occasion recently I have seen Hamish Hawk here – albeit each time he was showing the audience to our seats.

Hawk has graduated from Grand Circle stair duty to centre-stage spotlight, the kind of local-boy-made-good dramatic arc that positively begs for the Richard Curtis treatment. Making his debut headlining the 2,200-capacity venue, Hawk had the good grace to allude to his change in circumstances halfway through his set: ‘Please, be kind to the ushers…’

Everyone loves a hometown hero, but the pressure to deliver as a returning prodigal must be oppressive. This show, the last of a short British tour, was Hawk’s ceremonial point of arrival in the city where he grew up and still lives. I stole a glance at the guest list as I collected my tickets; it seemed to stretch halfway along Princes Street. Success has many fathers and plenty more who will happily stake a claim at paternity. I imagine anyone who so much as caught the tail end of an open mic spot back in 2017 was here, whispering to their companions something along the lines of, I knew him when he was nobody…

For the artist, the dilemma is how to pitch such an occasion. Play it cool and pretend it is just another show on the tour itinerary? Set the emotional controls to full gush from the get-go? Mix up the setlist? Stick to the formula?

Hawk got it more right than wrong. The set opened with the first four tracks from his latest and best album, A Firmer Hand. Each song slammed into the next, from the minimalist theatrical monologue that was ‘Juliet as Epithet’ (Hawk is no shrinking violet when it comes to a lyrical flourish) to the throbbing ‘Nancy Dearest’, via the sickly churn of the outstanding ‘Machiavelli’s Room’ and playful funk of ‘Big Cat Tattoos’.

At the end of that breathless salvo, both band and audience took pause – and a spontaneous ovation rippled through the hall, lasting a full minute. With the elephant in the room duly acknowledged, Hawk bowed, and we could all get down to business.

The music played by Hamish Hawk – the moniker covers both man and band, in much the same way P.J. Harvey once did, but it curves more obviously towards the singular – falls broadly inside the 6Music ballpark but defies easy labelling. Songs such as ‘Desperately’, ‘Bakerloo, Unbecoming’ and ‘Men Like Wire’ seemed determined to single-handedly (and successfully) revive the tired medium of wiry, melodic guitar rock. Elsewhere, there were excursions into folksy whimsy, grinding discordance, Laurel Canyon country-rock and pounding electro rhythms. A stomping cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ felt both incongruous yet oddly in tune.

The unifying factor was Hawk himself. He possesses the kind of fruity baritone which can often feel like the equivalent of a raised eyebrow or ironic quotation marks, although on more recent material he plays less to the gallery and more to the heart. Physically, he knows how to claim a room this size. There were shades of Berlin Bowie and Ian Curtis’s herky-jerky alienation in his movements and mannerisms, as well as a more playful marionette quality and a dash of Jarvis Cocker’s daytime quizshow-host loucheness. No indie-schmindie naval-gazing here.

Musically, the band were tight but the pack could have been shuffled to greater effect. From an intense opening, the set slackened before building up a head of steam towards ‘The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973’ (the undisputed prize-winner in Hawk’s series of look-at-me titles) and the taut, flaying squall of ‘Caterpillar’. Both songs have closed his shows for some time, but now feel closer to the start of his story than to what lies ahead.

This would have been a fine live show no matter where it happened to have taken place, and Hawk nimbly negotiated the line between gee-whizz gratitude and professional objectivity. Still, there were moments that possessed a particularly potent local charge. ‘I grew up in a cul-de-sac out by the ski slopes,’ he said, laying out the mise-en-scène for a moving solo acoustic version of ‘Catherine Opens a Window’ – and we all knew exactly where he meant.

During ‘Elvis Look-alike Shadows’, a song about shedding both excuses and inhibitions, he sang: ‘Is there anybody listening?’ Not so long ago, the reply might have been a hollow echo. Now, the line elicited an almighty roar in response. Edinburgh tends to dole out its admiration begrudgingly. On this occasion, it yielded willingly.