Steve Martin at the Hammersmith Apollo

Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers

Hammersmith Apollo, 8 July 2011

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to see Steve Martin on his first banjo tour. It was probably the most surprisingly show I went to that year because it was so good and not just the oddity a comedian playing the musician would suggest. Instead it was a fabulous mix of virtuoso banjo playing and genuinely hilarious comedy. Martin is not just a major comedy star but he's also a genuinely gifted musician, in fact it's delightfully old fashioned in a way, a star who is all-rounder, a true entertainer if you will.

Not that Martin doesn't realise that such a thing is a rarity these days, he actually thanks us for coming out and giving him a chance, likening it to going to see "an evening of Jerry Seinfeld doing original songs he wrote for the bassoon". Martin has in fact now written two albums worth of material (The Crow and Rare Bird Alert), both of which are infectious, clever and fun. Not that he doesn't get any help, his backing band ("I don't think of them as my band," he tells us, "I think of myself more as their celebrity.") the Steep Canyon Rangers are terrific in their own right, as witnessed by the two numbers they perform by themselves tonight, but having a focal point and front man in Martin does turn them from a first rate bluegrass group into something really special and wholly entertaining.

I must admit the show was very similar to the last time I saw him, complete with some recycled gags and skits, so this time the surprise element wasn't there, I mostly knew what to expect, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable and there were some nicely spontaneous moments, with Martin changing the first line of his song Jubilation Day to the timely "I'm walking away... like Rupert Murdoch told me". Plus there was the addition of songs from his new album Rare Bird Alert, named after a part he plays in a new comedy movie he's made about bird-watching (The Big Year), including an ode to fly-fishing, Yellow-Back Fly, and a song redressing the fact that the non-religious are missing out music-wise called Atheists Don't Have No Songs.

Obviously there's still plenty of humour in the songs (as well as some poignant moments, most notably the beautiful Daddy Played The Banjo) but the inbetween banter is always even more hilarious, with Steve pondering the universal appeal of the love song saying he heard a song on the radio the other day that amazingly sounded like it had been written just for him, called "I'm Leaving You Steve, You White-Haired Bastard". The band are also in on all the jokes, sportingly making fun of themselves and "their celebrity", and the whole thing has such an atmosphere of good feeling and warmth (there's nothing nasty or in bad taste), that the audience radiate it back onto the band giving them a standing ovation at the end of the show.

There's one Martin fan though who gets even more excited when they return for a round of songs for the encore ending with a bluegrass version of Steve's comedy hit from the 70s, King Tut, jumping up and down at the front and singing along with every word in a funny and endearing way. But you know, it wasn't just him, I can't imagine there was one person who left the theatre without a big grin of their face and really you can't ask more than that.