Like many of the few genuinely talented artists of the 80s, Roddy Frame is writing and playing some of the best music of his career in his 40s today.  Roddy began the decade that quality forgot fronting his band Aztec Camera.  Still in his teens, he brought out the classic debut album High Land, Hard Rain with its sublime melodies, romantic blue-eyed-boy poetry and prodigious Django-influenced guitar-work.  It was a tough act to follow and he couldn’t topple it with gradually diminishing returns.  Second album Knife was produced by Mark Knopfler, a choice which didn’t endear your Roddy to the indie crowd only to be followed by Love, commercially successful but with horrible 80s arrangements and production.  With gradually diminishing sales for his next two albums, it looked like Frame was sent as a creative force by the mid 90s.  Then gradually he recovered. Ditching the Aztec Camera moniker and stripping down his sound to just acoustic guitar and vocals, his second album Surf was a huge critical triumph and has been followed this year by the excellent Western Skies.  Roddy played songs from all of these eras at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in a brilliant gig.

Coming on stage to a rapturous welcome, the first section of Roddy’s show concentrated on his three solo albums with the odd Aztec favourite included for good measure.  Among the highlights were excellent versions of Over You, Western Skies and Bigger Brighter Better.

Roddy’s acoustic playing was excellent ranging from bright lead lines to crisp picking and very brisk strumming.  He was also in fine voice as he sang his romantic, distinctly phrased songs.  More surprisingly he also had a fine line in banter ranging from witty put downs of hecklers to amusing stories about Edwin Collins’ guitar tunings and the vegetarian drummer on Aztec Camera’s Stray LP.  Less was indeed more for both his stripped down musical arrangements and the impact of his occasional witticisms.

As the evening continued, we were treated to more of the best items in Roddy’s back catalogue such as a much-better-than-the-LP version of How Men Are, sprightly Boy Wonders and joyous version of Oblivious.  The adoring audience provided out-of-tune backing vocals to the latter song, Aztec Camera’s fist hit, but Roddy was still touched.  After all, it’s a difficult harmony…

After an hour-and-a-half and a three-song encore, Roddy took a fast-strumming bow for the last time.  We all wanted more but were still elated by the performance we had just seen.  A superb, virtually faultless gig, hopefully Roddy’s artistic re-birth and bright outlook will also bring about a deserved revival in his commercial fortunes.

8.6.06