Live Review: Carus Thompson

Black Bear's not getting any more crowded, which is perfect. It's a cool but not too cool, and an easy but not at all boring, evening. We've a crowd of about ten people, a whole bunch of tables and chairs and that cloudy White Rabbit stuff they have on tap here. It's all together the simple, undemanding makings of something kinda nice.

Carus Thompson takes the stage some two hours or so into the evening. He's wearing an easy jeans and t-shirt combo, an acoustic guitar strapped around his torso. He's grinning as he takes the mic. “Hi,” he says, and it's almost a laugh. “Hi!” we say, and we all pool infront of him. He strums the guitar a few times, intermittently flattening the hum of notes with his palm. Assuring us that he doesn't mind small crowds, he continues to tune, and tells us a story of the time he played for only four people somewhere in France. It's all very exotic, and it does the job of painting him as someone who's tonight slumming it for us privileged few.

For The Rest Of My Life begins his set, which he's here tonight playing to launch his new live album. It's a warm, humble, affable track whose simple, single-guy instrumentation compounds the intimate feel of the evening. In-between tracks Thompson breaks at length to drawl out folksy, earnest stories about how each of his songs came together. His lyrics, soon afterwards, basically spell out the same thing. Bright Star licks at our ears after that before You Made Me, a song about his wife and her affection for Paul Kelly.

The evening is the happiest of inoffensive flits. Thompson's bubbly and conversational onstage, and we're all warm, tingly alcohol and ochre lighting on misshapen wooden seats in front of him. Caravan belts out its titular refrain, Thompson easily his most interesting when he slips into some light folk, and the song itself isa whisper of things introspective, delicate and distantly sunny.

Tonight offers much more, and a lot more of the same, but that's not a bad thing. At intermission, Thompson steps down off the stage and walks a happy serenade amongst the tables. It's awkward, funny, and too earnest really to be too much of either. The evening and Thompson and his stories give us a glimpse into the starfield of the man's many experiences as a travelling musician. One imagines more quiet than loud, more intimacy than stadiums, but infinitely more contentedness than not.