Jonathan Wilson

Ruby Lounge, Manchester 1/02/12

Across to a dank and freezing Manchester for an artist I saw twice last year support Wilco. Wilson's music comes from the California to where Steinbeck's pilgrims headed west in the Great Depression to pluck the oranges from the trees. Tonight it's hoodies and North Face fleeces and an audience of a certain age attracted by the retro Laurel Canyon sound of his album 'Gentle Spirit' and its evocations of CS&N and Jackson Browne.

But when he ambles on at 9.40 and the band kicks in behind him it's immmediately clear that this isn't going to be a wistful aural gaze out to the Pacific Ocean but a decisively connected experience during which he will determinedly showcase his frighteningly impressive guitar technique and take jazzy, improvised excursions that the 1970s Californians seldom attempted. He has a wide attention span and demands the same of his audience.

The likes of CS&N were occasionally political standard bearers. The nearest Wilson gets to this is the opener  - 'Can We Really Party Today?'  - a rhetorical statement set in context by the next line  -  'with all that's going on...' He seems so laid back and at ease I'm sure he'll accept whatever comes his way, party or a quiet night in.

Four numbers in and I can sense an understated power behind the langourous melodies and the benign vocals. Sure enough, when he straps on his electric guitar it's the signal for a startling series of effortless solos. One minute he brings to mind Joe Walsh ('Rolling Universe') and the next David Gilmour ('Natural Rhapsody'). There is a langour and a blissful ease with which his band sits in behind him, a prominent Hammond organ adds texture and space to a sound which wraps itself around the venue  - I close my eyes for minutes at a time and it's a feeling close to meditation.

There is an honesty about Wilson which is endearing. He unshamedly evokes a hippy era which is very nostalgic for a lot of people. The stage is strewn with vintage analogue equipment and the instruments have the appearance of being used to death by a travelling band. Towards the end of the two hour set they put their foot down and it goes a bit Crazy Horse - unfortunately Wilson hasn't got the rasp or the vocal power of Neil Young and he looks more comfortable hunched over his guitar. The trade-off with the other lead guitar never quite approaches the telepathy of Verlaine and Lloyd but the convergence on the complex and addictive melodic figure that underpins 'Desert Raven' is hypnotic.

We head back to Leeds just before midnight and into and over the Pennine mist. Not quite the romance with which Wilson imbues his semi-spiritual journeys into the heart of nowhere but the experience must have rubbed off on me somehow as even the protracted M62 speed restrictions fail to impact on my wonderfully serene view of the world.