Jesse Malin

This is Jesse Malin’s first stop on a headlining tour of the UK after supporting Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople. The tiny but friendly venue tucked away just off the beaten track of Gary Lineker country is adorned with music legends and photographs of people who have played here.

The place fills out quite quickly, not bad to say this event is not advertised everywhere. The date fits snugly between two Ian hunter support slots, but you can tell Malin is happy to be last on the bill here. Try as I might I could not find out the support acts name; his music is typically Americana folk and he engaged the crowd enough, but for those listeners of Radio 2 (sorry to say but tonight a lot of those in attendance look like they discovered Malin on that particular radio station) it’s the main man they’re after.

Malin himself looks a little surprised at how many people in this small corner of the East Midlands actually know the words to a lot of his songs. The new bootleg and single CDs are selling well; it looks like he has an underground following in the heart of Leicester.

Most of the setlist features songs from ‘Glitter in The Gutter’, but this is less like a promotional tour and more like an excuse to be on the road (Malin only just toured for the album in May 2007) although new single ‘Don’t Let Them Take You Down’ is out soon. I for one am not complaining with the abundance of Jesse Malin in our small venues; the music is great; makes you feel all nice inside, and people of any age can be drawn to it.



‘Prisoners Of Paradise is an upbeat track to start with, and this continues with ‘Black Haired Girl’. Last single ‘Broken Radio’ appears quite early on, then there is a surge in songs from Malin’s debut solo album ‘The Fine Art Of Self Destruction’ with stand out songs such as ‘Brooklyn’ with it’s beautiful harmonies and the catchy ‘Wendy’.

Many of the songs are introduced with a little story about their origins, such as ‘Broken Radio’ (“music as a saviour”) and other mentions to interviews (how he is more used to them now they don’t take the piss out of his old glam rock appearance) and mentions to getting rid of Bush as President “for the last eight years!”.

A cover of Paul Westerberg’s (of The Replacement’s) ‘Bastard’s Of Young’ is the best example of when Malin’s voice sounds most like Neil Young’s, which is usually the case on the solo tracks. The songs featuring the full backing band have more punky vocals, reminiscent of the D Generation days. The one song that mixes the two different raw emotions in the vocals is ‘Solitaire’, with it’s soft, crooning, and almost sad-like sound bursting into a painful crescendo of a raw punk screams.

Coming back on stage for a few encores it’s clear that performing is what Malin was born to do. He even does his trick of getting the majority of the crowd to sit down on the floor as he stands in the middle, ensuring that he saw it being cleaned earlier on (“In Glasgow they would only sit down on chairs, and at another show one guy couldn’t otherwise he would rip his Sears pants!”).


A popular cover version (just to make it clear that Neil Young is an influence) of ‘Helpless’ provokes a sing-a-long, and finally a song from the under-rated (but my favourite) album ‘The Heat’ in the form of the gorgeous ‘Going Out West', featuring just Malin and his guitar. As long as this guy is touring I am going to keep on going to his gigs.

Set list:

Prisoners Of Paradise
Black Haired Girl
Downliner
Little Star
Broken Radio
Brooklyn
Almost Grown
Hotel Columbia
Don’t Let Them Take You Down
Wendy

Bastards Of Young
Queen Of The Underworld
Solitaire
In The Modern World

Helpless
Going Out West

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.