John Martyn lacked sparkle at London gig.
Although the rain had stopped several hours before, the crowds for the John Martyn concert were very slow in arriving. Reports of a sell-out in tickets seemed somewhat ludicrous when viewing the vast numbers of empty seats still around when the support band, Any Trouble, who nevertheless played an excellent set to a small but enthusiastic audience, arrived onstage at 7.30. The 
remaining seats didn’t really start filling up until the interval which made me wonder why support acts are booked if people aren’t going to go to the trouble to turn up and listen to them. In this particular case the missing audience missed a rare treat as Any Trouble, and in particular Clive Gregson’s vocals, were on better form than the main artist.
John Martyn was not at his best by any means and the lack of sparkle was there from the first number. Most of the material was early work up to and including the last album with all the old favourites such as “Bless The Weather”, “Over The Hill”, “Solid Air” etc, given new up-to-date arrangements. The audience were appreciative but somehow the concert never really got off the ground. John looked tired and although his playing was as fluent as ever, he seemed to be performing on automatic pilot for at least the first half of the set. There was really very little of the material off the new album and despite the digital pyrotechnics of the last number, the audience didn’t really wake up until the encore when for just two numbers the whole thing came to life. Having said all this, the band were excellent, particularly the bass player, and I would imagine that tiredness at the end of a pretty strenuous tour was the main cause of the lack of ‘get up and go’, rather than shortage of talent. John has had a very tight schedule following the album release and the strain was showing particularly in his voice. The audience went home satisfied, but not elated.
Lynda Morrison
Music World
3 to 16 November 1982
Hammersmith Odeon
Friday 22 October 1982
