'A night rich in mischief and melancholy': John Grant at Portsmouth Guildhall | Review
This evening’s performance by the boy from Michigan, is a seated affair — not what you might expect from an artist whose output since his Midlake-backed debut has often pulsed with digital dancefloor energy.
This wasn’t the only expectation confounded on a night rich in mischief and melancholy. Grant took centre stage before the lights came up, opening with a bonus track from that first album.
Sunglasses on and adopting a cod-German accent, he quickly ensured no one was to expect a sedate evening. There’s a glint in his eye behind those shades, and throughout the night, that side-eye and knowing smile pull the audience into the joke.
Amid the irony, the 90-minute set was laced with honesty and trademark vulnerability. It Doesn’t Matter to Him was the first example — a devastating torch song about a lost lover from 2013’s Pale Green Ghosts, echoing the bittersweet melancholy of The Carpenters.
Later, seated at the Guildhall’s grand Steinway, Grant introduced a trio of reflective piano pieces by announcing, “I’d like to ruin the mood with these funeral dirges, if that’s OK…”
One, Queen of Denmark, was dedicated to his friend and collaborator, the late Sinéad O’Connor, who once covered the song. As it reached its crescendo, he let the crowd sing the final line, trusting them to carry the weight.
That these ballads were punctuated by Meek AF from last year’s The Art of the Lie — its intro evoking a Frankie Goes to Hollywood 12” and featuring the first of several appearances by a Korg keytar — summed it up neatly: what Grant offers, and delivers in spades, is serious fun.
At various points the set echoed Prince, Freddie Mercury, Harry Nilsson, Air, ’70s Laurel Canyon, Haçienda acid house, prog-rock and New Orleans bar-room funk. These influences never sprawled, thanks to Grant’s not-so-secret weapon: a rich baritone that both intimidates and comforts, often within the same acerbic couplet. Whether crooning at a piano or barking through a vocoder, it keeps every eccentric sound grounded.
Two contrasting moments further illustrate the twin poles of his oeuvre: the piano-led Glacier, comparing heartbreak to a glacier carving beauty and devastation in its wake; and Grant kneeling theatrically before his synth altar during Black Belt, waves of analogue squelches rippling through the hall.
Closing with GMF, he first apologised to “the little one” in the crowd for his potty-mouth – a fitting finale of tenderness, self-deprecation and grandeur.