An evening with Tom McRae

Even though I spend an unreasonable amount of time at concerts, I rarely feel compelled to write about them. Most shows blur together eventually, no matter how loud the amplifiers or how enthusiastic the audience.

This evening was different. For the first time ever, the British singer-songwriter Tom McRae visited Gothenburg. Considering my usual concert calendar (dominated by EBM, synthpop and enough black clothing to intimidate a funeral), it felt like a refreshing detour into a different musical territory.

I’ve been listening a lot to McRae during the last years and I somehow ended up in the front row, only a few meters from the man himself. Then the lights dimmed. Without a single instrument, Tom McRae walked onto the stage and opened the evening with an unaccompanied rendition of “Mermaid Blues”. No band. No backing track. No safety net. Just one voice filling the room. Within seconds, the goosebumps had already arrived.

Tom McRae leading the Hotel Café band.

The concert was part of the Hotel Café Tour, a traveling collective of aspiring singer-songwriters sharing both stage and audience as they crossed Europe together. Although their musical styles varied, they clearly had one thing in common: none of them seemed particularly interested in cheerful subject matter. One performer was introduced with the wonderfully reassuring words that “he will likely write the soundtrack to your suicide”.

Fortunately, melancholy and great songwriting have always been close relatives. Every artist on stage delivered songs full of quiet beauty, heartbreak and just enough darkness to keep things interesting. For one evening, I happily traded pounding kick drums and smoke machines for fragile voices, acoustic guitars and songs that demanded silence instead of a dance floor. It was a trade well worth making.