191. The Magpie Salute
Rough Trade East
10 August 2018
There are few things stranger than watching a collective band born of bourbon, denim, and blues rock humidity play an acoustic set under fluorescent strip lights in Rough Trade East. The scent of freshly pressed vinyl, the faint whirr of the air conditioning, and a crowd of urban bearded types clutching limited-edition tote bags, is not exactly the natural habitat for southern rock revivalists. But that’s where we found ourselves as The Magpie Salute rolled into East London to launch their debut album High Water I.
For those still keeping score, The Black Crowes are long gone, their ashes scattered across decades of fraternal squabbling, drugs and creative differences. It’s been three years since the last official split, ten since Warpaint, and over twenty since The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion made them the unlikeliest chart-toppers of the early ’90s; a band that dared to play Faces-style blues-rock while the rest of America was busy wearing flannel and hating itself.
But guitarist Rich Robinson, the quieter of the two Crowe brothers, wasn’t done yet. So, he did the sensible thing: he started again, with The Magpie Salute: part revival, part reinvention. my friend and I had witnessed this resurrection in another unlikely venue: Stamford Bridge, or to be accurate, the weird, under stadium bar, and it was glorious. The joy of this collective found playing together was written large and felt by all.
Tonight’s show, a six-song acoustic set with only three of the band’s larger collective, was a masterclass in restraint. Gone were the howling amps and bourbon-soaked swagger; instead, three men with acoustic guitars and years of history sat beneath a logo-embossed, black curtain and made magic.
The chemistry between Robinson and Marc Ford, his old six-string sparring partner from the Crowes’ glory days, remains something close to telepathic. They weave and unweave each other’s lines like a pair of duelling poets, Ford’s slide work swooping and sighing while Robinson’s droning tunings anchor it all with quiet authority.
At the centre of it all: John Hogg. The man tasked with filling the shoes of Chris Robinson in this lineup. Remarkably, he doesn’t imitate, he inhabits. His voice is rich, soulful, full of grain and grit; all heart and no posturing. The setlist was short but golden: “Mary the Gypsy,” “Walk on Water,” “For the Wind,” “Sister Moon,” “High Water,” and “Send Me an Omen.” Each one stripped bare, laid open, their bluesy bones glinting under the shop’s unforgiving lights. On “High Water,” Robinson picked a hypnotic, Nick Drake–ish riff while Ford traced mournful filigrees over the top, a musical conversation between old friends who no longer need to speak.
Between songs, they were warm, funny, and disarmingly humble; a far cry from the ego-drenched swagger of the Crowes’ heyday. As the show ended, we filed out past them sat at a table as the politely signed their records for us, with a breezy warmth that seemed to indicate that, for at least these three, some kind of salvation may have been attained.