MUSIC REVIEW: FRAN HEALY - LIVE AT THE OGDEN THEATER

Winning Over a Crowd of Eye-Liner-Wearing Boys and Crimp-Haired Girls

By: Andrew Shaw

November 19, 2010

(November 18, 2010 in Denver, Colorado) Fran Healy is a charming performer.  Fans who know him as frontman for Scottish band Travis will be familiar with his effortless ease of delivery and gentle demeanor. Newcomers will surely find the Singer/Songwriter excellent company for a night of emotional address and melodic treats. Tonight, at the Ogden Theater in Denver, Colorado, Fran Healy, in his unassuming, naturally disarming way, won over a crowd of eye-liner-wearing boys and crimp-haired girls--a crowd who was perhaps expecting a more amped-up kick-off to the evening.

Currently touring material from his debut solo album, Wreckorder, Healy is on the road with Brandon Flowers, who is also touring his first album of solo stuff. The crowd, for the main part, was The Killers' frontman’s gang. These were Pop-Rockers who would be fist pumping later in the evening, but for the moment were tuned into something much more delicate, much more intimate.

Healy arrived onstage with an air of humility that has often been a trait that other artists have noticed in the man.  Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, a huge fan of Healy and Travis, once took the band on tour as support, only to later kiddingly remark that, whilst the music was great, Fran Healy was "too nice to hang about with us foul-mouthed ego-maniacs." Before even picking a note or strumming a chord, Healy introduced himself, explained where he was from and why he was on the road with new material.  There was a genuine sense of excitement about the man, and almost an air of apprehension as he introduced “Sing,” a Travis song from their third album. “Just to get me into it before we start with the other stuff.” He picked up his guitar, and away he went.

Punctuating his performance with almost as much friendly chat as musical performance, Fran Healy proved to the newcomers what fans have known all along.  He invests in every aspect of his work, from the recording studio to the live delivery, and he wants you to get it. Everything Healy does in art is to accommodate, make accessible, and unify.  Even when confronting elements of life that are counter to his own opinions, he does so in such a way that those in debate will surely observe and respect his perspective. Songs are stories, and the chat is filled with stories too. Everything about the man is open, since it seems he considers all experience to be worthy and more valuable for being shared.

It took only a couple of songs and stories before the crowd took Fran Healy to heart. With no strutting, no extravagance in lights or hipster wardrobe, he simply let the material and an acoustic guitar do the work. The rest of his set was filled with stories of excitable encounters with Paul McCartney, who contributes bass on one track of his album, to fleeting childhood relationships with fatherlike figures who left lasting impressions and inspired music many years later.

If you’ve not heard Fran Healy sing, you should go somewhere and hear Fran Healy sing. There are men with larger voices or more domineering methods of tackling a song, but what he does is get to the core of his message and then melts things from the inside. What he doesn’t achieve with charm and friendship he wins with subtlety and grace. His vocal chords were every bit as clean and breezy as they have sounded on studio treated recordings; it’s a rare and natural talent. 

Aside from a couple of Travis tracks, the large part of the mix was taken from Wreckorder. “Sing Me To Sleep,” which, on the album, features an organ-stopping harmony from Neko Case, was sung solo tonight with enough heart for two. The rest of the set-list highlighted aspects of an album that displays what Healy does best.

It’s not always the done thing to emerge from a show, gushing with praise and feeling like you want to revisit the back catalog of the artist you’ve just seen.  But Healy has a way about him, like so many other Scottish fellows that have the twinkle in their eye as they invite you to take just one more sip before you head out onto the road. He softens the hipster’s cynicism, drops the intellectual reserve of the writer, and just encourages you to sing, or hum, or do anything that involves you in the process.

For Fans Of: Travis, Jeff Tweedy, Ian Brody