★★★★½ Fine English chanteuse takes aim with political and socially critical songs.

Space Theatre, Adelaide
June 12, 2016

It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since Gaynor Crawford initially presented the fine English chanteuse Barb Jungr and her way with rock music’s bard, Bob Dylan. On her third visit she has chosen to focus upon her recent release, Hard Rain, to which she has returned to the kaleidoscopic word-tumbling images of his Bobness – this time juxtaposing his often roughly etched visions with the precise mastery of the more poetic Leonard Cohen.

Drawing on material from over a fifty-year period, in this recital Jungr often aimed for the more political and socially critical songs. There’s not much in the way of personal travails of love and relationships, choosing instead to aim for issues which widely affect us all. The juxtapostion of Dylan’s early anti-war rant at those in charge (Masters of War) with the withering cynicism of Cohen’s The Future is extremely well planned and as always with this singer she physically imposed herself into this modern world of dysfunction.

It is Cohen who is the true poet here. Many of his lines touch us with their often direct simplicity...