Russell Crowe and the Ordinary Fear of God at the Leigh Sawmill Cafe

Russell Crowe

Had things not worked out the way they did, this might have been a night in the other possible life of Russell Crowe.

A couple of hundred people in a country pub on a Thursday night in front of him, a band behind him, a set that chucked in a few covers among his originals; a Le Roq-ing good time all round.

Well maybe he wouldn't have had the expensive suit and a band looking like fellow pallbearers.

And he certainly wouldn't have had the expansive yarns to spin between songs. He certainly wouldn't have had as indulging an audience if he wasn't who he is in his other showbiz career. And if there's one thing kind of heartening about the Crowe show - this being the first of three New Zealand dates - it's that he doesn't pretend that he's not the star he is.

A celebrity, as it turns out, with a decent enough deep singing voice and some guilelessly personal songs, all played with some deft touches by a band which features among its line-up Bones Hillman, one-time Swinger and former Midnight Oil bassist.

Some of those songs, especially early in the set, groaned under the weight of their own theatricality.

Combined with Crowe's spoken introduction of them, the anecdotes often outdoing the numbers themselves in duration, the performance took a little while to pick up some momentum. He did like to toy with the mostly middle-age, seemingly female-dominated, slightly starstruck audience. "Is everybody having a good time ... because here's a song about suicide," he deadpanned, introducing Raewyn then explaining the various tragedies that combined to inspire the affecting number.

But eventually Crowe relaxed, told ribald jokes (as you would expect of the Australian he sometimes is), ran through enough comedy accents to worry Robin Williams, and let the music carry the show rather than all that persona. He seemed to find another gear when he finally strapped on his guitar late in the piece.

Yes, Crowe's music has no fear of the ordinary - or sounding like a combo of the New Wave era (as well his own Elvis Costelloesque Worst in the World, he chucked in a cover of The Only Ones' Another Girl, Another Planet) and the 80s Oz rock years. Oh, and a Texas blues take on Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison during the encore.

But as a performance it's both disconcerting and bloody entertaining.