'Is that him?" Knowing we were in for something special, but caught unaware by the arrival of some stocky, bespectacled, bald man, Whelans welcomed Ed Hamell to the stage with muted uncertainty. Igniting an explosive triptych of signature tunes, Hamell On Trial immediately blasted away all doubts.
Sugarfree, 7 Seas and I Hate Your Kid were abrasive, intelligent and very funny openers. It's a rare thing for a solo singer-songwriter to halt mid-song, apparently unable to continue before imparting a suddenly remembered filthy joke. But Hamell On Trial, with his boundless energy, frenzied guitar and seemingly uncontrollable profanities, was the giddy musical equivalent of Tourette's Syndrome.
This was a gig where you came out humming the jokes as much as the music. Hamell, you see, is a comic of the highest order, blessed with the bite of a cunning satirist, coupled with an acoustic maelstrom like 1,000 frantic thunder claps. And, as Hamell readily acknowledges and audience requests betray, he is cut from the same cloth as the late, great Bill Hicks.
While other self-sanctioned comparisons to The Stooges and The Ramones bolster the punk zeal of his raucous Gibson guitar (often played with bluegrass speed), Johnny Cash associations fortify the sincerity of his delivery. In truth, though, Hamell is his own man and few comparisons do justice to his electrifying presence.
Peals of laughter greeted his bullet-paced, acerbic lyrics and bodies contorted in hysterics at his unprintable jokes. If Hamell played to the gallery puncturing quirky love song I'm Gonna Watch You Sleep with humorous interjections, the ballad Open Up the Gates was an untainted, muscularly delicate elegy for his mother. Overall, for the self-styled defendant who covered Cash's Fulsom Prison Blues, his performance was, quite simply, a riot.
