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Written by Stephen Schenkenberg Tuesday, 06 December 2005 08:37

November 15, 2002 Off Broadway

In a pleasant change from musicians sidestepping St. Louis on their cross-country tours, singer/songwriter Richard Buckner treated the city to two shows in three months, both to church-quiet crowds at Off Broadway. What distinguished the two solo shows was Buckner’s confidence in delivering (and remembering) songs from his newest record, the recently released. Here in late August, Buckner played only a few from the then-forthcoming record, stopping halfway through one of them, telling the crowd, “Sorry, that’s another new one. I’ll stick to the classics that made me the fucking millionaire I am today.” (The humor proved a good antidote to the slip; both his devoted fans and Buckner himself know that if songwriters were paid for their quality, he would be a fucking millionaire.) Impasse

But at the November 15 show, Buckner embraced the new record, performing a tight set filled with new material plus songs from each of his first four records. Playing an early 7:30 show without an opener, Buckner took the stage in all denim, setting up his nylon- and steel-stringed acoustics, his electric, and a small box organ. His first five songs spanned four albums, beginning with the unlikely organ-played opener of “On Travelling,” the funereal love note from his masterpiece Devotion + Doubt. He followed this with the Impasse’s “Stumbled Down,” a masterly picked and sung “Raze” from Since, and, after tuning in dead silence, acoustic deliveries of the new “Born Into Giving it Up” and “Blue and Wonder” from his first record, Bloomed.

After playing a few more from D+D and Since, Buckner delivered an unreleased song, which fit well into his songs’ storylines about longing and frustration: “Sweet anybody/I have nowhere left to hide,” he sang, “lost inside a sound/I was never just away/did you ever try to say...” That tune, and another new one he played at the August show, will be out next year on an EP he recorded with Jon Langford in Chicago. Over the next nine songs, Buckner shifted instruments continuously, drawing from his entire oeuvre. Highlights were the driving “Believer,” the tender “Song of 27” and “Gauzy Dress,” the new “(a year ahead)…& a light,” which he re-arranged for the organ, and “Ollie McGee” and “Tom Merritt” from his challenging concept record, The Hill. After playing another new gem on the nylon, Buckner played six songs in a row, blending the end of one song into the beginning of another, offering no opportunity for the audience to even applaud. (Buckner’s powerful presence is such that, if you’re thinking he might not want you to applaud, you don’t applaud.) During this 20-plus minutes—when the only crowd noise was lighters lighting – Buckner steered through the D+D opener “Pull”; the new record’s “…& the clouds’ve lied”; the Since closer “Once”; the fablish nightmare “Emma,” which he played to a waltz beat; and D+D’s stunning “Fater,” which he sang without instrumentation near the back of the stage, nowhere even near the mic.

Encouraged back up for an encore, Buckner delivered “Goner w/ Souvenir,” the oldie “22,” which he sang with a devouring growl, and, on organ, “William & Emily,” the closer from The Hill. As he played this album and concert closer about the lives of two scarred souls, Buckner could’ve been describing the end of a night for his family of grateful fans who join in silence for his every performance:

If with someone with whom you have known passion
And the glow of youthful love
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire
And thus fade away together
Gradually, faintly, delicately
As it were in each other’s arms
Passing from the familiar room
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!