In an intelligent interview segment at the end of this DVD, Kevin Coyne offhandedly describes his artistic motivation as “exorcising some pain, giving some love”. This is as neat an encapsulation of this fiercely individual performer’s unruly, essentially uncategorisable gift as it’s possible to arrive at, and Live At WDR-Studio L presents an all-too-rare encounter with the sadly-missed maverick in full unconfined flight.
Coyne was literally and figuratively the wrong shape for rock stardom, but a compelling and unforgettable presence onstage nevertheless. In this footage, shot for German TV’s Rockpalast, a respectful, if at times palpably uneasy, audience is treated to an evening in the company of an extreme, confrontational but profoundly humanitarian spasmodist from the Joe Cocker/Roger Chapman school of epileptic self-expression, primitively fretting an open-tuned acoustic guitar with his thumb over the top of the neck. There appears to be no filter between the tics, mutterings and echolalia of Coyne’s subconscious mind and the outside world; far less any tempering of the red-raw howls of emotion that supercharge magnificent blasts of righteous indignation such as Uggy’s Song and Don’t Blame Mandy.
The great Zoot Money accompanies Coyne on keyboards from Dynamite Days onwards, which doubles the legendary iconoclast quotient at a stroke.
