Live Review: Ron Sexsmith, Bob Evans

A night for slightly dishevelled troubadour cherubs. Sweetness in voices maybe belying a bit of heartache over some 'her' or 'she'.

Lately "that guy in Jebediah" again, Kevin Mitchell slips back into his alter ego Bob Evans' comfy slippers. He's chatty — particularly with the lady down front who'd perhaps had a chardonnay too many. She knows one of Kev/Bob's songs has been in a commercial lately. She's just not sure which song, or advertising what. As he strums, she knows it's not Someone So Much, but might be Don't Wanna To Grow Up Anymore. Mitchell smiles patiently, offers a couple of new songs before Nowhere Without You, advising us he'll be "over at the bar seeing Ron for free". Apparently the main reason he lobbied for the gig. And why not?

Rather than usual solo mode, Ron Sexsmith comes with his neat little bar band, reflecting the slightly more rocky Carousel One album. But he grab-bags his back catalogue. Sun's Coming Out bumps into Retriever's Whatever It Takes, Sexsmith musing from under that tousled mop of hair that it was covered by Michael Buble, "But now you'll hear it the correct way," he half-jokes.

There's Strawberry Blonde and dreams of Saint Bernard. Dave Matheson's keyboards cradle that so plaintive voice through Jazz At The Bookstore. The band exit for the singer to deliver the fragile defiance of Foolproof from the piano, before the old-school boast of Believe It When I See It "...making it to #3 on the charts".

There's something genuine about Ron Sexsmith. You see it on those YouTube clips where he sings covers into his iPhone from whatever anonymous hotel room he's staying in. With a couple of hundred people here it's a bit less intimate, but just as sincere.