He actually played everything at once.
It sounded nice, even a little interesting, but I didn’t bother looking him up on the Web.
This time around, though, my friends were proactive. They contacted me ahead of time, let me know they’d be at the show, and I made plans to attend. Just a week ahead of time, Rudd’s manager sent me a copy of his forthcoming CD Food in the Belly – due out in America in January.
My first impression of his work on disc was that it was impressive, fun, comfortable and even somewhat familiar. It reminded me of Paul Simon and Ben Harper, as if that were a plausible collaboration.
Really, I had no idea.
Onstage, Xavier Rudd’s energy is electric. His upper body barely moves as, from the wrists down, he flails in every direction, banging on cymbals and various drums. His set-up includes a couple of gongs, chimes and traditional drums from around the world. There are three didjeridoos, which are switched occasionally by someone who, on any other tour, would be a guitar tech.
There is another musician onstage with him, who plays a full standard rock and roll drum kit, as well as some sort of hand percussion, which isn’t visible from the only place I could find in the crowd to stand and breathe.
In fact, the room is packed dangerously tight. My friends and I agree, should we all need to evacuate, we’d be dead for sure. There’s no moving through this crowd. During one slightly insane moment, I tried moving to the opposite side of the stage to get better pictures. I was okay leaving my space, but returning was quite a different experience. I had to fall in behind a couple, who were navigating the crowd with a months-old infant tied to the front of them. They only got so far before they had to stop and bounce to a song.
Bouncing at an Xavier Rudd show is obligatory. Not only because the room is so impossibly thick with human bodies; but also because the music just causes you to groove. Resist the groove, and you may as well stay at home.
Despite the fact that he has yet to officially release any sort of recording in the US, Rudd’s fan base here is extraordinarily enthusiastic. They know all the words to his songs—many of them, no doubt, found the tunes online somewhere—and are prepared for each drum solo and didjeridoo drone.
As Rudd told me earlier in an interview, his music is not easy to pinpoint. He laughed off the suggestion his work could fall under the folk category, before realizing that he really does use a lot of folk aspects in his work. In fact, one moment he’ll be playing reggae, and the next will sound like something Paul Simon could have composed during his early years with Art Garfunkel. Then the next song comes along, channeling one of Rudd’s musical heroes, Leo Kottke, albeit with an underlying beat that would make an electronic musician sweat bullets.
One minute, he's showcasing his incredible dexterity on his Weissenborn slide guitar, the next, his sticks are cascading around his collection of cymbals and drums. All the while, he's grumbling through a didjeridoo or waling into a harmonica. Whatever you want to call it, it’s good, and its influences have blatantly arisen from nothing other than the lands he so tirelessly explores.
