The only indigenous Australian on the bill at the Adelaide festival, Archie Roach generates extraordinary warmth. At the end, the audience leaps up for a standing ovation; in the ladies' loo, one woman is tears and another is saying the concert made her ashamed to be white, though Roach's songs are rarely finger-pointing. Instead they're rousing affirmations of community, love and universal brother-and-sisterhood, which could sound syrupy in the wrong hands but in Roach's are often deeply moving.
Roach is one of Australia's most prominent Aboriginal singers. His back story is shocking. Like so many Aborigines of his generation (he's 56), as a baby Roach was removed his parents and given to white foster parents to bring up, part of a 60-year government campaign of racist social engineering. Roach's first single was released in 1990 - the self-explanatory Took the Children Away, sung tonight by an Aboriginal gospel choir. In the past three years Roach has suffered a stroke, lung cancer ("young fellas – don't smoke, it'll kill you," he counsels the audience) and the death of his partner Ruby Hunter. It's fairly amazing that he's on the stage at all.
Yet from the outset it's clear that Roach doesn't need the sympathy vote. His first song, Into the Bloodstream - the title track of his most recent album - has an autumnal string arrangement, simmering Hammond organ, and Roach's own sweet, weather-beaten voice. His songs draw alternately on country and soul, employing a brass section, gospel choir and full band, all of whom wear a saffron-colour scarf which matches Roach's. There are some powerfully charismatic - and, in Australia, famous - performers among the many people on stage, not least backing singer Jack Charles, who would turn heads for his electric-shock white pompadour alone. Yet even though he is sat on a stool while the choir bashes drums or dances like a wedding party blessed with a free bar, Roach effortlessly runs the show.
Even when the music often strays into Later with Jools Holland territory you feel that Roach has probably earned the right to take it easy. Yet at his best, he has the strength and gravitas of an outback Johnny Cash. As the concert concludes with fervent declarations of love between Roach and his audience, you wonder whether it isn't too late for him to go global.
