Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo @ the Vanguard

Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo @ the Vanguard is a review by Sean Cerexhe-McIntyre.

There’s been some fantastic lost musical gems unearthed in the digital age. Nick Drake found widespread popularity after decades in the dark, and Sixto Rodriguez became world famous after the Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man. 

One of the more recent cases of this is that of Jackson C. Frank.

Releasing one lone album in 1965, an acoustic folk masterpiece, the late Frank’s life story reads like a tragic odyssey (a devastating but fascinating read). Highly regarded by his musical contemporaries, Frank’s songs fell into obscurity until the mid-late 2010s, since then featuring in films and gaining traction through the internet.

Former Bad Seed Mick Harvey and Australia-based Mexican singer Amanda Acevedo are touring their new collaborative album Golden Mirrors (The Uncovered Sessions Vol. 1), an album of Frank covers. 

While Harvey’s musical catalogue is extensive and iconic, Acevedo is a rising singer taken under Harvey’s wing, and they’ve now released two albums together.

On their Australian tour they’ve stopped off at the Vanguard in Newtown.

The venue has recently undergone renovations and technical upgrades, and the space is beautiful. It feels like the kind of smoky, hazy burlesque clubs you see in older movies. The venue’s in seated mode, with columns of tables lined up in front of the stage dotted with glasses of red.

Opening for Harvey and Acevedo is Ed Clayton-Jones, who has previously collaborated with the Bad Seeds and Rowland S. Howard. He looks super slick, and his set is a dark, groovy hour heavy on spoken word vocals, bluesy guitars and thumping cavernous drums. His voice feels like Lou Reed meeting Gareth Liddiard of the Drones and Tropical F*ck Storm. 

He’s eventually told by Harvey to wrap it up as he’s running into the headline set’s playing time, and he promptly obliges, to laughs from the crowd. He’s a new discovery for me and an awesome surprise, the set was great.

When Harvey and Acevedo come out, it feels like the whole room knows Harvey personally. There’s a lot of back and forth with the crowd, and it’s hard to tell which of the crowd knows the band personally and which are just longtime fans. 

The instrumentations are haunting and lush, featuring a violin and cello among the more conventional rock instruments. Harvey and Acevedo have translated Harvey’s original lyrical monologues into duets, trading verses and choruses back and forth.

You can hear an audible “Ohh” from the crowd mid-set when Harvey introduces Frank classic I Want to be Alone (Dialogue). Their cover of Pat Benatar classic Love is a Battlefield is a dreamy interpretation, and their rendition of Harvey original Slow-Motion-Movie-Star stands out.

After a 3-song encore they finish up and come over to the bar to chat with those staying back.

To see them breathing new life into Jackson C. Frank’s catalogue is a great experience, and their interpretations felt true to their own style. Acevedo as a performer complements Harvey well, and it’ll be interesting to see how their partnership continues to progress and evolve.