By Elliott Childs*
Calexico performing at Wellington Opera House. Photo: Maeve O'Connell
Review - With roots that trace back to the early '90s when frontman Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino both spent time in the vaunted and idiosyncratic band Giant Sand, Calexico have become an institution in the world of Indie rock and have worked with the likes of Neko Case and Iron and Wine.
Taking influence from the varied and diverse musical heritage of the southern United States Calexico have developed a style that runs the gamut between Latin influenced funk to reverberant instrumentals as evocative of the sun baked American south-west as the opening shots of Wim Wender's masterpiece, Paris, Texas.
This current tour of theirs is ostensibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of what is widely considered their breakout album, 2003's Feast of Wire. The band played the record in full and in the atmospheric setting of the Wellington Opera House, in front of a mature but enthusiastic crowd, they played with such passion and the material seemed so timeless, it was hard to believe that was 20 years old.
Calexico have a reputation as a great live band and they certainly live up to it. It is clear from the start that these musicians love playing together. From the knowing glances exchanged during key changes, to cheering each other on through solos it was obvious that they were having a great time.
Calexico performing at Wellington Opera House. Photo: Maeve O'Connell
In all honesty, the fact that they seemed to enjoy playing so much makes it hard to pinpoint particular highlights from the set though their version of Love's classic 'Alone Again Or' elicited shouts of excitement from the audience. And then, in the looser, drawn out instrumentals such as 'Close Behind' the band got to stretch out a bit and show us just how good they really are.
Calexico's line-up has been somewhat fluid over the years but this version of the band is close to the one that recorded Feast of Wire all those years ago. For a six-piece band, they cover a lot of ground with multi-instrumentalists Martin Wenk, Jacob Valenezuela and Sergio Mendoza moving with ease between accordion, viberaphone and trumpet amongst others. Burns, in his role of frontman was generous with his praise for his band mates and gave them plenty of space to shine with guitarist Brian Lopez even taking the lead for one canción.
Burns for all his energetic guitar playing and dancing around the stage barley broke a sweat despite wearing a hat and jacket for the entire show.
He is clearly a fan of playing in Aotearoa and made a point early on of extolling the virtues of Cuba St and the various local records he'd purchased earlier to the appreciative crowd. He also at one point admitted that The Clean's David Kilgour had inspired a line in one of his songs.
An encore of songs culled from their back catalogue concluded the night and Calexico left the stage to a rapturous and much deserved standing ovation.
*Elliott Childs is RNZ's Team Lead, Live Operations and a dedicated music fan.
