Pat Metheny makes triumphant return to Hammersmith

To borrow the name of one of his most popular tracks, guitar legend Pat Metheny once again posed his perennial question to a capacity crowd at the Eventim Apollo: ‘Are You Going With Me?’ After 2hrs 45min set of songs from across the range of Metheny’s career since 1975, varying in volume from a whisper to a roar, it was clear they were ‘with him’; five encores and standing ovations were testimony to that.

But some of the audience may have been curious about just how this Side-Eye Trio project would render the usually rich Metheny soundscape, given there was no bass player. Would there be sonic gaps? Not a bit of it, keyboardist Chris Fishman’s left hand saw to that, artfully twining sinuous fretless sounds on ‘Bright Size Life’, and underpinning classics like ‘Farmers’ Trust’, ‘So it May it Secretly Begin’, ‘When We Were Free’ and ‘Always and Forever’ with sonorous dexterity. At times Metheny took over bass-end duties to allow Fishman, relatively new to the Side-Eye after replacing James Francies for this tour, to shine with imaginative, virtuosic piano and synth solos.

Outstanding young New Orleans drummer Joe Dyson matched the bandleader’s energy throughout, bringing that rapid, crisp cymbal work that’s been a feature of Metheny bands since the days of Dan Gottlieb, but also bringing a vibe that contrasted with more recent kit man Antonio Sanchez’s brand of idiosyncratic brilliance. Dyson had plenty of space to stretch his chops, exploding on the rhythmically displaced minor blues ‘Timeline’, swapping choruses on old fave ‘Jaco’, and duetting with Metheny (on a distorted and what looked like a fretless acoustic guitar) on a fantastically wild medley of Ornette Coleman numbers including ‘Broadway Blues’ and ‘Turnaround’.  Coleman wasn’t the only sadly departed musical great whose presence was felt during a performance that also evoked memories of Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker, Jaco Pastorious and Charlie Haden.

On newer tunes such as ‘Zenith Blue’ and ‘It Starts When We Disappear’, mechanical instruments including xylophones and glockenspiels from Metheny’s smaller-scale Orchestrion were unveiled, adding a layer of welcome percussive timbres and layers on these more complex long forms. Although called the Apollo, many in the audience will always refer to this venue as Hammersmith Odeon, a concert space that has hosted some of the most progressive names in jazz over the past 40 years: Miles Davis’s early 1980s comeback, peak Weather Report, the London dates during the first decade of the Metheny Group … The atmosphere – more raucous than at the more arty Barbican and Southbank halls – seems to borrow from the rock gigs for which it was renowned in the 1970s. There were plenty of veterans in the audience but also quite a few younger people, perhaps introduced to Metheny’s music by their parents or starting out down the jazz road as musicians themselves – but anyway a sign of the Missouri-born guitarist’s broad appeal.

After five encores including ‘Song for Bilbao’, an acoustic melody that took in ‘Minuano’, ‘Last Train Home’, ‘September 15’ and ‘This is Not America’, ‘Peace’ (first played with Brad Mehldau) and the Beatle’s ‘And I Love Her’, young and old people amid the crowd were on their feet and united in admiration and awe of this 67-year old who appears little changed in terms of enthusiasm, energy and the sheer desire to play from the stripy t-shirted 20-something who first played here around 1980.

When Metheny introduced his grand, computer-driven midi-note-playing Orchestrion in 2010 he was asked ‘why?’. He said didn’t really know but just loved mechanical instruments. No doubt they cause quite a bit of extra hassle on tour. Similarly, playing without a dedicated bass player brings an extra workload and rethinking of arrangements, leaving us to ask ‘why?’. But we’ve learned to go along with Metheny and trust his judgement. There can only be one answer to ‘Are You Going With Me?’.