Mark Wilkinson: Love, Loss and the Beauty of an Intimate Room

Nov 2

5 min read

The Ellington Jazz Club | Perth

Sending me anywhere in Perth after being away for so long has become something of an adventure.

Things have changed. Old landmarks I used to navigate by have disappeared. Signs are bloody digital now. And I’m officially of the age where I can lose my car.....

Multiple times.

So arriving at The Ellington Jazz Club for Mark Wilkinson’s Love and Loss Tour already felt like a minor achievement.

It was my first time at the Ellington, and for a moment my friend and I wondered whether we’d found the venue or accidentally wandered into a private restaurant. But once you’re properly inside, you get it.

It’s warm, cosy and intimate. There are drinks, there’s food, and tables fit together so snugly that groups who arrived as strangers end up merged. A couple sit right alongside the stage, which must be some of the best seats in the house.

A Room Built for Listening

Big stages create spectacle. Small rooms create connection.

At the Ellington, you’re sharing a room with the artist, and with everyone else. The staff personally showed people to their seats, and you could tell the music, and the people coming to hear it, mattered.

As loud as that little room could get between songs, when Mark started playing it could fall completely silent.

Even the softest moments travelled.

Waiting for the First Note

I’d arrived early. Obviously.

It’s an interesting way to watch a venue. An half-empty room fills up, tables get occupied, strangers introduce themselves. Then, as 7pm gets closer, the chatter turns cautious.

Was that movement near the stage? Is he coming out? Should we stop talking?

Nobody wants to be halfway through a sentence when the first note starts.

There was no opening act tonight.

Mark Wilkinson opened for Mark Wilkinson.

Meeting Mark Again

I’d seen Mark only a few months earlier, opening for Katie Noonan, with the Love and Loss Tour already on the horizon. Back then, his set left people wishing he’d played a little longer.

This time, we had a whole evening.

It’s something I hope BTN does more of. I don’t want to photograph or review an artist once and move on forever. I want to come back and see what’s changed. It seems only fair that those of us documenting the journey occasionally stick around for more than one chapter.

Love, Loss and a Room Willing to Listen

Mark’s voice is a soothing, soulful spoonful of honey. It lends itself almost too well to sad songs. There’s warmth in it, even when what he’s singing hurts.

And watching him, you can see how much the songs mean to him. Before he begins, there’s a little moment where he seems to turn inward, gathering his focus before sharing something personal.

At times he becomes so completely immersed in the music that it looks as though the room has disappeared.

Sitting that close, you notice those moments.

You can hear the feeling, but you can see it too.

Mark leaned on songs from his new EP, and plenty of them resonated with me. Goodbye is a personal favourite. After my partner was killed, saying goodbye wasn’t something I did once. I’ve had to keep saying goodbye to things we made together. It’s a song I sing at home, and hearing Mark sing it in that room meant something to me.

Stories were given room to breathe, and when Mark softened, the room breathed with him.

Then the first interval arrived earlier than planned.

Broken guitar string.

Live music. What are you going to do?

There’s no reset button and no second take.

Something goes wrong, everybody laughs, you deal with it and the night continues.

Take Two

By the second half the room was louder, and not because the music was. The strangers who’d been seated together had now shared half a concert. They were talking about the songs and telling their own stories. A collection of strangers had started becoming a little community.

Mark made up for the shortened first half, and then he got the Ellington singing along.

He saved it for Thought You’d Be Around. There was still a little confusion about exactly what we were supposed to be singing, but the audiences part of that song is “na” on repeat....

How can you go wrong?

A room of people who’d been strangers when the night began sang it back to him.

It was an amazing moment, and it’s the one I’m sharing as a clip, because it shows what a night like this feels like better than I can describe it.

Even the encore came with some Wilkinson improvisation. The room had barely managed ten seconds of cheering before he decided we could stretch that out a little longer.

He had to retune his guitar.

Again.

So we kept going.

Nothing needs to be perfect to be special.

Sometimes You Can Refuse the Discount

Afterwards Mark headed out to meet people, pose for photographs, chat and sell merchandise, and that’s where I saw something worth mentioning.

There were deals on merch, but my friend did the maths and chose to pay full price anyway.

I loved that.

Independent musicians often discount themselves far more than they should, and it’s worth remembering where a discount actually comes from. It comes out of the artist’s pocket.

You can also say: no, your work is worth what you’re asking.

Buy the merch if you can, pay the proper price, throw something extra their way - But support doesn’t have to mean spending money you don’t have!

Turn up when you can. Listen. Tell somebody about the show. Share the music. And next time they come through town, bring another person with you.

One person becoming two is how audiences grow.

People at gigs have started coming over to ask what BTN actually is, and the answer gets easier to give each time. BTN Music Club is free for musicians.

Deliberately.

Artists already have enough to pay for. I don’t want BTN to become another invoice.

If I can photograph somebody, write about their work, share their music or give another independent artist a little more space to be discovered, that’s the point.