Gillian Welch at the Hammersmith Apollo

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Hammersmith Apollo, 23 November 2011

"I just looked around at all the stage I'm not using," quipped Gillian Welch at the start of the show and it's true that she, along with partner and musical accompanist David Rawlings, do look slight on the vast and historic Hammersmith Apollo stage. But, man, do they manage to fill it with their voices and Rawlings' amazing guitar playing. The Apollo may be far from intimate but by the end the show it certainly felt like it was.

Wearing a thin, sleeveless cotton dress and boots with Rawlings in a old-style suit and cowboy hat, the pair looked like they should be singing on the back porch of some Southern house back in the 1930s. "I'm a little overexcited" she beamed, maybe because it was the last night of their European tour (hopefully not because Prime Minister David Cameron was in the audience - I'm glad I didn't spot him at the time) or maybe it was because she was feeling the warmth and good vibes from the audience. But then people are really happy to see her (and Rawlings) back as it's been eight long years since her last album (apparently writer's block is to blame) and this year saw her finally make a welcome return with a startlingly good The Harrow And The Harvest. It's classic Welch and certainly everything we had hoped for, so not surprisingly the first half of the show draws heavily from her new release and every song sounded as timeless and classic as her best known material.

She is without doubt a superb storyteller, many times I felt myself closing my eyes to take it all in and picture the tale, although I'd quickly return my eyes to the sparse setting in front of me, just because Rawlings, one of the best acoustic guitar players I've ever witnessed, was so mesmerising. When the pair played possibly her best song, the epic Time (The Revelator), Rawlings' end guitar solo (yes, on an acoustic) was jaw-droppingly powerful and led to one of the longest applause of the night. And he really deserved it, holding his guitar pointing outwards like a gun and looking like a modern-day Hank Williams, it was incredible to see his nimble fingers intricately enhancing every song. The show may well have been billed just "Gillian Welch" but Rawlings was definitely equally a star.

Their harmonies were also spectacular. A few time Rawlings joked that the songs were downbeat but there was something undeniably joyful about them too, not least the toe-tappingly feel-good Elvis Presley Blues and Six White Horses which saw Rawlings playing banjo while Welch tap-danced the percussion, grinning the whole time. 

For one of the three encores they even turned into Johnny Cash and June Carter and gave us a hugely fun version of their old duet Jackson before ending the show with a countrified version of Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic classic White Rabbit. It was a beautiful surprise, much like the rest of the night, full of down home charm and happiness. Not even David Cameron could spoil that.