Evan Dando at Islington Assembly Hall

Evan Dando

Juanita Stein

Ella Raphael

Islington Assembly Hall, 30 October 2024

I've always thought that Evan Dando was one of the forgotten and underrated songwriters of the 1990s, perhaps because of his heartthrob status and slightly airheaded, hippy persona, it feels like he hasn't been regarded with as much respect as his music warrants. Judging by the love for him and his music tonight, obviously a lot of people feel the same way, and it was rather lovely to see.

Before the headliner though there were two opening acts, beginning with one I had never heard of before, the very romantic sounding, Ella Raphael. A singer-songwriter from London, the dark-haired Raphael, looked elegant in a simple black top and skirt and began her set playing keyboards on an unusual sounding Let The Light In, with its electronic shimmers and swirls, it was quite mesmersing.

She then took up her acoustic guitar, and accompanied by a Slash-lookalike on a Les Paul (well, it would have to be wouldn't it?), the rest of her set was more traditional singer-songwriter fare but no less delightful for it. Her voice was obviously influenced by old-fashioned jazz singers and some of the songs had an almost, tropicalia feel. I suppose it was a little twee but the songs were melodic and dreamy and she reminded me a little of Eleni Mandell and Zooey Deschanel at her She & Him best.

Most of the songs came from her debut album Mad Sometimes (one tune called All In was particularly charming) but she also debuted a new song that ended with an almost punky feel. Definitely a worthy opener and one to watch for sure.

Next up was Juanita Stein, the Australian singer-songwriter probably best known for her work with the band Howling Bells, who I actually saw once supporting Mercury Rev back in 2008. I'm more familiar with her solo work though, particularly her debut album America, which I listened to a lot back in 2017. I've never seen her live though so I was thrilled to see she was supporting Dando tonight.

She came out looking extremely cool in a dark red jacket and black jeans and strapped on a red hollow body Ibanez guitar, looking slightly pissed off. She beautifully sang and played a couple of tunes before revealing just why she was looking annoyed: "We're all music lovers here but there's always a few at the bar who talk through the set". I'm sure she called it "a bit soul destroying" but I may be misremembering. It was true though, as throughout Ella Raphael's set too, there was a lot of chatter and I was glad she said something, as the whole night was just singers and their guitars, and not big bands, so all the talk was particularly noticeable particularly during the quieter songs: it's pretty disrespectful, not just to the act themselves but also to the people who want to actually hear the music!

And Stein was definitely worth hearing, her voice was lilting and pure and she gave us a nice selection of tunes from all three of her albums, including a couple of songs from her first record, which thrilled me, namely the title track America and the plaintive Americana-infused Florence. There was also a great new tune commenting on the destruction of our planet called Mother Nature's Scorn from her upcoming new album The Weightless Hour, which, with its echoey guitar and dreamy chorus had a haunting feel. It was great to finally see her live!

I loved The Lemonheads as a teenager and not only did I see them live five times in, what is probably considered now, as their heyday, I even met Evan Dando a couple of times. Once was when the band was playing the Reading Festival and I walking through the crowd and bumped into him, strolling around with Juliana Hatfield (whose music I hadn't discovered at that point, but thanks to The Lemonheads I soon would and she would become incredibly important to me throughout my life, so thank you Evan!) and he took the time to say hi to me and my brother and even gave me a kiss on the cheek, which as you can imagine was absolutely thrilling to a teenage girl, especially given Dando was jaw-dropping beautiful back then and a bonafide indie pin-up. 

The other time I met Dando was completely by accident too: I was at a Kyuss show watching the support act at the Camden Underworld, when the guy next to me leaned over and asked if I knew the name of the band. I looked up and it was none other than Dando himself. When the band finished playing, we began chatting to him and he was incredibly gracious and nice even though he probably thought he was completely safe from fans at a Kyuss show! (Out of all the people he could have asked, it's so funny he ended up standing next to what were probably the only Lemonheads fans in the crowd). We asked him what was happening with the band and he said they had just lost their bassist, and I immediately piped up "I play bass!" but sadly he just laughed and I didn't end up playing bass in The Lemonheads. This would have been a very different blog if he had taken me up on the offer!

For some reason, after that I didn't go see The Lemonheads or Evan's solo shows again, even though I continued to follow his career and buy his records. I missed out on The Lemonheads playing all of It's A Shame About Ray last year (Courtney Love made an appearance!), so I was happy to get another chance to see him when he announced this solo show at Islington Assembly Hall. When I looked back to see when was the last time I saw him live, incredibly I discovered it was exactly 30 years! It was at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in 1994 (the Kyuss meeting happened a couple of months after).

There have been so many stories about Dando's chaotic, possibly drug-fuelled, performances over the years, it didn't really surprise me that he arrived about 20 minutes late to the stage looking suitably disheveled (it's funny because, he is in reasonably good shape for his age and hasn't aged badly, and with a little care and grooming would probably look great, instead of giving off a bit of a homeless musician vibe). Before he made it on, a huge pink cigarette smoking teddy bear was placed on the front of the stage along with a painting Dando had painted himself, that included the names of songs from the setlist he would be playing tonight (not in the right order though) which it was announced, for £20 a ticket, would be raffled off during the show (I didn't buy a ticket as the painting was huge and, if I had won, it would have been difficult to carry home for one thing), the lucky winner getting to meet Dando after where he would sign it.

When Dando finally shuffled on, he added a skateboard to this interesting assortment of visuals and a pile of old books, which he placed at the front of the stage. It was weird, even though he was obviously 30 years older than the last time I saw him, how much of that bumbling surfer dude remained. Smiling but without a word, he immediately launched into The Outdoor Type, which at the end morphed into Being Around. It was shambolic but lovable, and quite quickly played, not always to the right rhythms, as if he was still getting his bearings, but making it amusingly difficult for the few attempting to do so, to sing along.

After giving a couple of the expected Lemonheads tunes, he swiftly embarked on a number of cover versions of songs from the well-known to the obscure. Dando has always loved covering other artists and I must admit, I probably heard his versions of some of the artists I love today, first being sung by him. It's partly why I think cover versions, even ones by popular artists I don't particularly like, are so important, as they lead people back to the originals and help keep them alive. I know that was certainly the case for me!

Tonight Dando sang songs by Chris Brokaw (My Idea), Edwyn Collins (Low Expectations), Reason To Believe (Tim Hardin), Different Drum (Mike Nesmith/Linda Ronstadt), Return Of Grievous Angel (Gram Parsons) and, almost as if he knew I was coming, Fleetwood Mac's Landslide. He didn't actually know the lyrics by heart for this one and had a print-out taped to his mic-stand during his rendition. Also, amusingly, at one point a security guard's walkie-talkie starting making a lot of noise during the song and he had to stop, which was a shame, but he picked it up seamlessly and it was still a treat to hear it. At the end he took a great deal of time folding up the lyrics to make a little paper airplane and threw it into the audience and the chap next to me caught it (and promptly tore it lol).

I was also thrilled to hear his cover of the Tim Hardin song, Tribute To Hank Williams, which is on his solo Griffith Sunset EP, and it still sounded magical and so full of sadness. In a way Dando seems more comfortable playing other people's songs and he certainly put plenty of feeling into his rendition to make it incredibly moving.

Maybe because he was feeling more comfortable now by playing so many songs by others that he loves, he seemed to hit a groove and the show just kept getting better. When he returned to his own tunes, like The Turnpike Down and Stove (my heart! I've always loved this tune from the album Lovey), they sounded just as brilliant and as classic as any of the covers he was singing.

He brought on a guitarist, whose name I didn't catch, to help him play and sing a new song, which he said was the last song on his forthcoming album, and had a chorus that sounded like "living in the key of victory", which went down well with the crowd and signals good things for the new record.

After playing maybe the only solo song in the set, the fantastic Hard Drive and a really gorgeous cover of Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You, he returned to The Lemonheads' back catalogue and the audience was ready and waiting for it.

There was Rudderless (one of my absolute faves, so wonderful to hear it live again!), a beautiful Hannah & Gabi, a punky and fun Hate Your Friends, a joyous Bit Part (played after someone shouted for it),  a super sunny Allison's Starting To Happen, a spirited Into Your Arms and a sparkling Confetti, all of which had all the audience singing along (it was particularly lovely to hear everyone singing Juliana Hatfield's parts in Bit Part!).

It's almost as if Dando didn't like the audience getting too comfortable in the rosy nostalgia of the old favourites and he returned to the covers, first with one he had recorded previously with The Lemonheads, Skulls by The Misfits (including amusing little Danzig impressions littered throughout), which spawned two more Misfits tributes, with Astro Zombies and Teenagers From Mars, which Dando wasn't even sure how to play but gamely worked his way through it! It was actually funny how he sabotaged the nostalgia-fest with a bunch of Misfits tunes. I mean, they sounded incredibly shambolic and fun but mostly I hugely respected the fact that he had lulled everyone into the false sense of security of the Lemonheads' most poppy tunes only to turn it on its head with old school punk numbers. That said, he then did play the audience-pleasing It's A Shame About Ray, which of course went down a storm and sounded fantastic.

After another Fleetwood Mac tune (Spare Me A Little Of Your Love) and Here Today, Gone Tomorrow by the Ramones, he gave one of the highlights of the night for me, and maybe his greatest song, Ride With Me, which still sounds so plaintive and full of longing. Just incredibly beautiful still and perfect to be played alone on the acoustic guitar.

After this there were so many more covers, it's almost as if he was trying to fit in as many as possible, I mean there was even two Elvis Costello songs that went one into the other (Beyond Belief and Man Out Of Time) and two Richard Thompson songs that did the same (Withered And Died and The Dimming Of The Day - by the end of these two I was recalling Juliana Hatfield's hatred of Thompson's music in her memoir and I was almost with her!). As we were nearing curfew I wished he would play a few more of his own tunes at this point and indeed the crowd were shouting out some great suggestions. Despite this we instead got The Bee Gees' To Love Somebody, Teenage Fanclub's Start Again and The Beatles' I Don't Want To Spoil The Party. I must admit by then I was less enchanted by the covers than I had been at the start.

That said, he did give us a gorgeous My Drug Buddy (I would have been pissed if he had missed this for the double deckers of Costello and Thompson) and a real oldie, Mallo Cup, from the album Lick. He was about to launch into Big Gay Heart, giving us the opening chords, when someone came out to tell him he was about to go over the 11pm curfew. He almost shuffled off the stage, saying "I've been told I have to stop!", but was allowed do a final tune, so ran back on to the edge of the stage, taking just the microphone in order to sing his famous cover of Frank Mills from the musical Hair. He then quickly abandoned the mic and jumped down off the stage in order to sing it a cappella, which the audience once again gamely helped along with, singing every word and to be fair, it was a charming and lovely end to the show.

I have to also mention, the near the end of the show he also drew a name out of a hat for the raffle and a girl near the front won the painting, which she screamed with joy at receiving, so clearly the right person won it! He also threw the big pink teddy bear into the audience and another girl managed to grab hold of that (as I walked to the train station after, she was behind me, holding the enormous cuddly toy in her arms, which was funny, but I once again was glad I didn't have to carry the smoking bear all the way home!).

Even though the show was great and Dando was on the whole, on great form, I did wonder if he was on something, as he sped up so many of the songs (mainly his own, mind) and played them slightly off-kilter, plus his general demeanor. It wasn't detrimental to the show on the whole, but I do hope he's okay, given his past with addiction and how it pretty much derailed his career for a while. Especially given there is obviously still a lot of love for Dando and such warm feeling and genuine joy for his music, which was so evident tonight. It was a thrill to be part of it again and hear those songs that have meant so much to me and, even though I got a little tired at the end, it was great to hear his interpretations of so many wonderful songs too, some of which were new to me, so even all these years on, Dando is still introducing me to new music, which I'm incredibly grateful for.  

It's also amazing that he can remember the words to so many songs, I mean he almost played 40 songs on the whole tonight and only one did he need a lyric sheet for! It's an incredible talent to just be able to pick up a guitar and sing so many songs, and not just your own. It's affirmed the fact for me that Dando is such an important and talented artist and hopefully he will get his due, because he honestly deserves it.