Review: Mary Gauthier, The Tunnels

It’s in front of a full house at the Tunnels, or ‘the bomb shelter’ as she jokingly calls it, that Mary Gauthier enters the stage. The venue is actually quite fitting for tonight’s performance of songs of her new release, Rifles and Rosary Beads. The audience agrees with some giggles before disconnecting from the outside world to follow Mary into her bubble of moving despair and honest intentions. She has been working for the last five years with American veterans and their families in song writing retreats to help ex-soldiers deal with their emotional traumas.

Gauthier herself had a troubled life, from struggling with coming to terms with her adoption to alcoholism and homelessness. She carries a big baggage of pain with her which was and still is a massive inspiration for her genuine outstanding music. Before getting into the songs, Mary takes the time to explain the stories behind them, from her first encounter with the former soldiers to the process of co-writing songs with them once they opened their heart to her. She praises the power of music in helping people deal with their emotions and admits that this sort of therapy has helped her a lot too. Indeed, she has the beautiful capability of transcending her own issues to work towards something meaningful for the wider community.

Accompanied by talented and mesmerising Italian fiddle player Michele Gazich, Gauthier performs Iraq, a splendid song co-written with a retired female US veteran who suffered from sexual harassment within her own military base. Stronger Together is a blend of accounts from soldier’s wives supporting each other in the darkest of times. Amongst the sadness, this song shows that there is still hope and strength in togetherness. Gauthier also explains how she has seen desperation as the main motivation for those soldiers’ decision to join the army; in the USA, the education is really expensive and the military assure them free scholarship once they return. Most of the evening, the audience discreetly wipe their tears but with Still on the Ride, the story about an injured soldier who lost his best friend in the war, the crowd can’t really hold them in anymore. Mary shares how the experience of writing and playing songs with her, helped him to turn his survival guilt into a hopeful second chance.

For the encore, Gauthier performs the gorgeous Mercy Now and then invites the crowd to sing with her Woody Guthrie cover This Land is your Land. This song might have been written almost 80 years ago but it is still very much relevant today with the current climate. She says it herself ‘there is something bad waiting to happen, especially after Brexit and the 2016 election’. There might be dark times ahead but Mary Gauthier is undoubtedly doing her part to make a difference, with beautiful genuineness and an inspiring rebellious vigour. Her performance tonight, with controlled guitar chops and passionate vocals, is astonishing and the crowd who witness this great singer-songwriter in such a small intimate venue can call themselves lucky. What a woman.