As Mark Lanegan ambled onto the Doug Fir stage Wednesday night, he seemed addled with every bit of bad and good he’s experienced in his years as a musician. Clad in nothing but black, he peered out into the crowd with narrow eyes and hesitated not for a second before launching into the first song with his angelic and lovely musical partner, Isobel Campbell.
The two are such a stark contrast to the other, yet fit together on the stage in such a mesmerizing way. Lanegan has seen decades of triumphs, first with grunge forefathers Screaming Trees, then as a powerful solo artist who lent his voice to the likes of Queens of the Stone Age. But he’s also seen the devastation years of drug and alcohol use has had on him, which has included the loss of close friends such as Kurt Cobain to the same intoxicants he consumed. Campbell, on the other hand, is a Scottish-born singer and cellist who spent her early musical years singing for the light and wistful Belle and Sebastian, then later with the Gentle Waves, a similarly breezy pop group. She’s a petite and graceful lady, almost always smiling demurely, but she holds her own with gorgeous vocals and a strong stage presence.
Lanegan and Campbell couldn’t seem any different in their styles and personas, but we should all be so grateful the two met and decided to collaborate together. The duo shocked fans and the press by doing so elegantly with their first album together in 2006, and the pair have since continued to wow and surprise everyone by releasing two additional albums since. This includes their 2010 release, Hawk, which brought them to Portland on their supporting tour.
Along with the duo was the engaging Willy Mason, who had collaborated with Campbell on her most recent solo release. This guy actually tricked me into thinking he was a roadie who had wandered out onto the stage before he quieted my incorrect thoughts with a blast from his acoustic guitar. I had been sick all week, and had even considered getting someone else to fill in for me at this show – despite how desperately I wanted to see Lanegan perform! – but the second Mason began singing, I knew I had made the right choice. He had a thing about him that sounded as close to old school country music as you could get without actually being country, and he played it well. Most tunes were slow rollers that used the guitar to convey the proper emotion, and it was a necessary reminder that music can be just as powerful with one man and one instrument as it can be with a stage full of players. His guitar picked up my happiness with certain plucks, and darkly settled me with thoughts of sorrow as it reached down low.
One song’s lyrics of "call out," showed Mason turning his head from the mic to sing away, and it produced an amazing echo that gave the piece a matching forlorn feeling. Many of his songs felt morose, including his most uptempo tune, “Gotta Keep Movin’.” In it he sang deeply of keeping ahead of his troubled mind, but it was a stunning melody that showed him at his best. As good a musician as Mason is, however, his lyrics seemed to stumble from time to time – thankfully, that guitar work of his saved the day and made his performance a great one.
Mason's performance made me wonder how much Lanegan had begun to experiment with a more rootsy and country sound; I hadn’t heard much of his and Campbell’s work together, and listening to an opener like Mason definitely had me assuming Lanegan had begun to angle his music in that direction. It also seemed to make sense, considering the persona he’s always held begs comparison to the original Man in Black, Johnny Cash. The music playing over the speakers at the Doug Fir didn’t help matters much, as Dolly Parton sang about the South and Loretta Lynn proclaimed, “You’re lookin’ at country!”
I soon found out that Lanegan and Campbell have a style all their own, and that it’s founded on great respect for one another. Their first song was a lonesome one, with a lost highway sound emanating from the guitar, and vocals that felt to be drifting in from faraway. Following that sorrowful opener was ”You Won’t Let Me Down Again,” a much faster, driven tune, with Lanegan taking the lead and Campbell mostly humming along.
Later, the song “Come Undone” showed the duo at a battle of vocal and personal beauty. A piano-heavy track with ‘70s soul, the song puts Campbell at little above a whisper as Lanegan growls out each verse. His face showed he was putting everything he had into each word he sang, and whenever Campbell would smoothly dip her vocals to their lowest region, it would eerily match that of her partner’s. It was breathtaking.
The instrumentation of the night was highly effective, with Campbell shaking the tambourine and sitting down to play the cello more than once, a bassist switching back and forth from upright to electric, and a back-up guitarist working double time on electric guitar, steel guitar and keyboards. Then there was lead guitarist Jim McCulloch, who tore his way through the set with blazing guitar riffs and supplied the duo with a song he penned himself, "Salvation."
Three-fourths of the way in, Lanegan muttered his first spoken words of the night, with a “thanks” to the crowd as he walked off stage. Mason returned to perform a few songs from his and Campbell’s work together, and it was exciting to hear him play with a full band. Before Lanegan returned for the final piece of the set, Campbell took center stage to perform “To Hell and Back Again” on her own, and it reminded all the Lanegan fans in the audience of her talented and compelling contribution to the duo.
Lanegan’s return to the stage made for the best part of the night, however, as the pair blasted through sultry hits “Back Burner” and “Come On Over Turn Me On.” Their return to the stage for an encore that featured “Revolver” and “(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me” was bittersweet, iced to perfection with their cover of Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man,” a song that befits Lanegan in only the most suitable way. Campbell’s background whistling and gripping vocals deftly added to the track.
And in the end, the enchanting duo left the stage as quietly as they had come. Lanegan turned and gestured to Campbell with a look of fierce respect, and she did the same. It was a powerful moment, representing the deep bond they've crafted together, one that no one could've expected to work as beautifully as it has.
