With their city ringed by bushfires and blanketed in an end-of-days smoke haze that, by Tuesday, exceeded the level decreed “hazardous” 11 times over, Sydneysiders were in dire need of a blast of pure and unbridled joy. Step forward, Gerry Cinnamon.
The unsigned Scot – a word-of-mouth sensation with the soul of Billy Bragg, the sound of the Proclaimers and the haircut of a young Paul Weller – writes the kind of songs you find yourself singing along to on first hearing. On his debut album, 2017’s Erratic Cinematic, they’re folk-pop pub anthems about learning and yearning; vivid, at-times introspective tales of wasters and dafties and days lost to drugs.
On stage Cinnamon transforms them into out-and-out bangers. Armed busker-style with an acoustic guitar, harmonica and a loop pedal with a stonking sonic boom, he stomps and shouts and races about, barking with delighted laughter mid-ballad and serving up a leave-everything-on-stage energy that sends audiences into ecstasy.
Though determinedly independent, with little in the way of radio play and wary of media attention, 35-year-old Gerard Crosbie – the stage moniker comes from his former band the Cinnamons – has harnessed social media to connect directly with his fans and slay a monster 2019, packing them in at Glastonbury and co-headlining Scotland’s TRNSMT festival with Stormzy. In Australia to support Liam Gallagher and appear at Fairgrounds festival on the New South Wales south coast, he’s playing solo shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
He’s just sold out Glasgow’s 50,000-seat Hampden Park stadium in hours for what is sure to be a triumphant homecoming gig. On Tuesday night at the 1,200-capacity Metro Theatre – it sold out in minutes – his fans know they might never get the chance to see their “warrior poet” hero up so close again.
But they’re not going to let that spoil the party.
After wryly sweet, fuzzed-up pop from the support act, Green Buzzard – AKA Sydney rocker Paddy Harrowsmith – the chanting begins: Cinnamon’s name to the tune of KC and the Sunshine Band’s Give it Up; and the less-melodic but to-the-point “Gerry! Gerry! Gerry fucking go!” Many are wearing “GERRY FUCKING CINNAMON” T-shirts.
Then it’s into canny lead-up tunes, raucous whole-of-crowd singalongs kicking off with Afroman’s Because I Got High and ending with Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, with a detour along John Denver’s Country Roads. It’s mayhem, and the main act’s not yet sung a note.
When Cinnamon finally takes the stage he launches straight into the bluesy, riff-laden Lullaby, its chorus accompanied by stage-to-ceiling blasts of smoke (as if Sydney needed any more), then the breezy album opener, Sometimes. Both are songs you could end a set with and are met with rapture.
Dark Days, from the forthcoming album The Bonny, delivers the line: “These are the best days that you’re ever gonna have.” Canter starts with: “This is the beginning of the rest of your life / You better start movin’ like you’re running out of time.” Exhortations to seize the moment, and this man is playing as if it’s his Last. Gig. Ever.
The crowd are dancing and moshing and singing and hugging and high fiving and livestreaming the show to friends back home, whose stunned faces stare back at us from phones held high. It’s a sweaty, glorious frenzy of connection.
There’s no respite in the love songs. Sun Queen and and Belter, though marginally quieter, are still greeted by a crowd going absolutely apeshit. The roar is overwhelming and at times Cinnamon looks overcome by the delirium he’s unleashed in a city so far from home.
As he sings the final bars of Diamonds in the Mud, his joyous ode to his own town, he wipes away a tear.
I’ve been all round the world
But there’s nowhere compares to my home town
The mayhem of Glasgow is buried deep in my blood
And there’s no other place where ‘a cunt’ might not be a put-down
It’s 13 degrees and there’s folk in the street in the scud
No’ the best place, but there’s diamonds in the mud
The final encore is a cover, of Hixxy’s happy hardcore favourite Discoland, spliced through with the evergreen “Gerry! Gerry! Gerry fucking go!” chant.
Fifteen minutes after the last note and with the house lights on, the floor is still filled with people dancing and singing – ending, at last, with their own cover, of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough.
Sydney, your summer is here.
GERRY CINNAMON
(@GerryCinnamon)No words could do it justice. Tell my grandkids about that one.
Cheers Sydney ❤️
• Gerry Cinnamon plays Melbourne’s Croxton Bandroom on Friday
