The Apollo’s huge stage contains nothing more than a stool and a table, upon which are placed two drinks and a very tiny amplifier, but Gillian Welch and David Rawlings don’t need showbiz trimmings. Later, when Rawlings straps on a harmonica, his musical partner quips: “That’s all you get by way of costume changes from us.” The “show” comes in the playing, the performance and 23 songs which cast a magical spell for (including interval and encores) just short of three hours.
After playing on each other’s albums for years, last year’s stellar Woodland album cemented the pair’s more recent emergence as a classic American acoustic singing duo. They complement each other perfectly. Stetson-topped Rawlings fingerpicks and grapples with his vintage guitar as if it is a wriggling animal, while Welch strums purposely in a flowing dress that could be straight from a spaghetti western. Rawlings’s voice is beautifully plaintive with shades of Cat Stevens while Welch’s stirring vocals evoke mountain ranges, open skies, railroads.
Occasionally joined by upright bassist Paul Kowert (the stool is for him to rest his bow), the duo share lead and harmonies to deliver largely sad themes such as loss, the songs’ yearning power interspersed with jokey banter. When Rawlings is tuning up, Welch quips: “Oh, God. Do I have to tell a joke now?”
Numerous highlights include Rawlings’s aching Ruby, Welch’s wistful What We Had or the mesmeric, pointed The Way It Will Be, about the effects of war. The pair aren’t known for political statements, but a sudden segue into Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land feels pointed and is rapturously received.
Encore follows encore — Elvis Presley Blues, Look at Miss Ohio – as neither crowd or artists want the show to end. With the house lights up, Rawlings asks for “one more diddy one”, which turns out to be a sublime rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic-era anthem White Rabbit. An unforgettable evening from two artists in love with what they do and at the peak of their powers.
• At London Palladium, tonight and 27 October, and Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 29 October
