Barbican, London
London has always given a warm welcome to Lambchop's country rhythms and skewed realism – and, as singer and guitarist Kurt Wagner takes in the awed crowd, it's clear the feeling is mutual. "A lot of cool stuff has happened on the stage here for me," he says, the brim of his trademark trucker cap hiding any hint of watery eyes.
It was during a show here more than a decade ago that the band, still squinting in the success of their 2000 breakthrough album, Nixon, premiered their song, My Blue Wave. Wagner says "it changed my world". It marked a departure from the sprightly, Curtis Mayfield-indebted soul and strings of Nixon to the soft, jazz-influenced sparseness of 2002's Is a Woman. My Blue Wave's intensity still has Wagner jolting and squirming in his chair, desperate to get every ounce of sound out of his acoustic guitar.
He has described the new album, Mr M, as a combination of those two prior, pivotal releases and Lambchop certainly seem at home with the lush arrangements and quiet power of stunning songs 2B2 and The Good Life (Is Wasted). Wagner's intimate mumble has taken on a croonerish authority, while the once 20-strong line-up is now a trim sextet, featuring Cortney Tidwell on haunting, siren-like vocals and latest recruit, pedal steel-guitar player Luke Schneider, who at one point bursts into Panic by the Smiths. "It's traditional for us to embarrass the newest member of Lambchop," Wagner says of Schneider's passable Morrissey impression, "and he's very, very embarrassed."
While Wagner doesn't have the slick stage-patter to match his new Sinatra-influenced singing style, he does indulge in playful banter with pianist Tony Crow, who dedicates the suitably nostalgic Cowboy on the Moon to the late Davy Jones. Wagner's warmth and approachability punctures the reverence awarded Lambchop's every note and he enjoys the tangible affection in the room. "Thanks for being so kind to this old fucker," he says after a tender encore of Bob Dylan's I Threw It All Away. "If you've seen us once, you've seen us a thousand times."