In Brighton Dome’s main space, built for the Prince Regent’s horses, is Patti Smith, a singular legend, whom you can’t imagine doing anything else but sing. A few metres away, in the neighbouring Corn Exchange, is Adam Buxton, whom you very much can. It’s a problem which blights the entire gig.
Buxton, once of comedy duo Adam & Joe, and successful broadcaster and podcaster. For a very specific middle class demographic, he’s a national treasure: King of the Centrist Dads, with his silly little jingles and thoughtful, discursive interviews with the great, the good, and Helen Lewis.
We see glimpses of his charm between the songs, as he tells rambling stories about being mistaken for Eric Cantona, and when he pontificates on one of his specific areas of expertise: how social media has made everyone so flippin’ angry.
The problem is that the songs themselves aren’t very good. Here promoting his debut album Buckle Up after a lifetime of silly ditties, this set falls awkwardly into the category of earnest novelty. Many are too irritating to reward repeat listen, but they’re also too earnest and sincere to be as funny as his online smashes like Festival Song.
This is clearly a labour of love for Buxton, and he’s gone all-out in realising his dream of doing a proper album. He’s got a tight band and a decent producer in the form of Metronomy’s Joe Mount, here tonight on drums.
Everyone in the band is dressed as Buxton, with matching shorts and matching little hats, worn because “my cowardly hair is deserting me”.
Buxton’s love of Bowie, Eno, and Lou Reed is well documented, and his four-piece are tight in that jerky, angular, late-seventies way; there are bursts of Korg, beautifully arranged backing harmonies, and a driving krautrock beat to many of the tunes.
The songs themselves, however, often verge on the excruciating. Buxton is never far from a self-consciously “silly” voice, as he sings about bad teatowels, loading the dishwasher, cutting one’s thumb on a fancy grater, and other inconsequencial concerns.
Mocking the bourgeois pettiness of Buxton’s own difficulties is, of course, the point of these songs, but they’re neither funny nor particularly memorable. Even on Pizza Time, a sweet tale of trying to connect with Buxton’s own teenage son, the earnestness of the emotion is lost in the stupidness of the delivery.
There’s a moment of faux “rock and roll spontaneity”, when a member of the audience is invited up on stage to play some synth on a Roxy Music cover. This is the highlight of the show, and closest to the inclusive spirit of Buxton’s podcast, as the man introduces himself as someone “who works for the council”, and clearly enjoys the opportunity to rock out with his hero.
The problem is that the man from the council is cosplaying being in a band, just as it feels Buxton is himself. This is a passion project that got out of hand.
Writing songs that are both funny AND profound is extremely difficult – only a few acts, ever, have managed it, most notably Wirral geniuses Half Man Half Biscuit. But as Buxton sings about the difficulties of getting the correct duvet cover for his enormous bed, he falls far, far below that kind of quality.
He’s clearly a nice and interesting man, but this reviewer wishes they’d next door with Patti Smith instead.
Reviewed on 12th May.
