M Ward set to hit Australian shores

BobbySix.com was eagerly positioned in the front row of The Famous Spiegeltent when American folkster M. Ward played a fantastically intimate show in Hyde Park as part of the 2007 Sydney festival, so it is with excitement that we share details of his upcoming tour of Australia.

In case you are not au fait with the man, here's the history lesson: As well as being an esteemed producer, Ward has also been involved in collaborative projects including She & Him with Zooey Deschanel and indie supergroup, Monsters Of Folk with Jim James from My Morning Jacket and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes.

At these February gigs though, the American will perform solo and will be playing a repertoire from across his extensive catalogue. Support will come from Holly Throsby, who will be offering up tracks from her upcoming album, Team.

An evening with Ward and Throsby is sure to be something special. You can find them at the following venues (tickets go on sale tomorrow):

FRIDAY 18th FEBRUARY - PALAIS THEATRE, MELBOURNE
Tickets available from www.lovepolice.com.au/tours / Palais Theatre Box Office or from www.ticketmaster.com.au

SATURDAY 19th FEBRUARY - TIVOLI THEATRE, BRISBANE
Tickets available from www.lovepolice.com.au/tours or www.ticketek.com.au

SUNDAY 20th FEBRUARY - ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY
Tickets available from www.lovepolice.com.au/tours or www.ticketek.com.au

Tired Pony - The Place We Ran From

Surely side-projects are designed to allow musicians to go a little leftfield without having to worry about alienating their fan-base. Don’t they offer the perfect opportunity for artists to get that pan-piped concept album out of their system before going back to their day job? Apparently not if you’re Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody. Having assembled some impressive names - including Peter Buck, Richard Colburn from Belle & Sebastian, Editors’ Tom Smith, Iain Archer, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel - for his new country-rock band, it is equally amazing and disappointing that the result often sounds just like Snow Patrol.

On the plus side, Tired Pony certainly doesn’t have any of the self-congratulatory smugness that sometimes comes with side-projects. In fact, the album has a rather disarming feeling of humility. The downside is that it’s often a little dull. While there are some nice moments - Deschanel duets prettily with Lightbody on Get On The Road, Iain Archer, as always, is charming and Tom Smith stands out for his haunting delivery on album highlight, the acoustic The Good Book - for the most part, the lack of risks taken on The Place We Ran From is hugely frustrating. It may lean slightly further towards Americana than arms-in-the-air British indie, but it is still pretty much the same congenial middle of the road stuff that Gary Lightbody has been writing for years. While this album is certainly better than the majority of Snow Patrol’s output, it would have been so much more interesting had Lightbody strayed a few steps further from his comfort zone. A wasted opportunity.