Review: Dana Fuchs, Tunnels

There are people who believe passion is emoting your way through a verse and chorus of an Adele cover in front of a panel of manufactured pop stars and wannabe impresarios, and commitment is being moulded in to a product for a short lived career as a “star”. In the real world passion is playing small venues in front of a select crowd as if you’re headlining a sold out arena and commitment is doing this time and again as you build a career. The Dana Fuchs Band is following the latter course: they played a blistering set at the Tunnels and are touring in support of a Live CD/DVD combo Songs from the Road. They’ve a substantial following in Europe and are six CDs in to a recording career that has been well received back home in the States and have begun a campaign to convert the UK.

As for the show, let’s flip things around and start with the band rather than Fuchs herself, because a great vocalist needs the right band in order to shine. Jon Diamond is an effective bandleader (and writing partner with Fuchs) – he plays a mean guitar in a variety of styles: clean country leads complementing Fuchs’ acoustic; raw & polished blues, and juicy rock n roll leads – stinging and venomous when required – but he’s also capable of playing with delicacy on the ballads. The rhythm section (Walter Latupeirissa on bass & Piero Perelli on drums) keep things rock steady, supple Motown / Stax styling where required and then driving the up-tempo numbers effortlessly. The set included covers of Patsy Cline, Beatles, Cash, Otis Redding and Randy Newman and yet each of the tunes was tweaked to fit with the originals, giving a delightfully homogenous feel to the set, nothing sounded out of place.

Fuchs is an old school singer, but not at all old fashioned. She takes elements from the soul, blues and rock traditions and blends them into a contemporary style that sounds fresh & exciting live. On stage she is a compelling presence, pouring herself in to the songs and barely able to contain herself as she sings, each tune invested with a physical intensity as if she can’t contain the song and yet can’t control its release. That isn’t to say she has no technique, she has it by the yard and the range to cope with the diversity of the material too. The performance was sensual and yet a million tweets away from the fake sexuality of the latest RnB minxes and pop strumpets, channelling the earthy yet honest physicality of the great original soul singers.

The set was well chosen with peaks and troughs and the DFB material more than held its own with the covers. Almost Home was a strong statement of intent to open the show and Bliss Avenue sealed the opening, thereafter the set was carefully picked to give an ebb & flow to the show, with Fuchs making the most of a small crowd that was hell bent on wringing maximum enjoyment from an intimate show. God’s Song was the pick of the covers but run a close second by a genuinely innovate cover of Ring of Fire, and Helter Skelter left the crowd as drained as the band.

Photo by Doug Bearne