Night Tripper Trips The Light Fantastic

Another old bloke, and also another one from Noo Awlins and who also just roils around the piano scales. Playing at the Trinity was the perfect venue – well, in Bristol anyway – for the great Dr John, the Night Tripper (aka on occasion as Mac Rebennack). Bringing his gris gris (I hope you’re getting all these references – it’s not easy fitting them in) and going through his back catalogue and also picking up the occasional track by Professor Longhair (what is it with people from New Orleans and their names?) he performed an object lesson (or is it masterclass?) in how to look effortless whilst leaving everyone else in the dust some way behind. Highlights included Walk on Gilded Splinters – although not quite as weird and eerie as when he played it recently (a couple of years back?) at the Colston Hall (I think – see how weird it must have been?).

Only slightly spoilt by some strange people who insisted on standing near the front so that they could shout louder at each other. This was duly dealt with when a very large man who asked them to be quiet (politely as far as I could tell but also fairly pointedly) and then adopted a decidedly heavy bouncer stance to one side. Let’s hear it for big blokes doing the decent thing. Yay!
Anyway, the good Doctor was as nimble as pie on the keyboard, his lethargic wanderings off-stage, around the piano and elsewhere not necessarily down to his age (he must have been performing for well over 40 years now – though with the occasional rest between shows) as he was never exactly athletic, Bless.
So go and see him. He’ll be around again. He’s not as regular as Robyn Hitchcock but he turns up now and then. Or, if you can, take a trip to the Crescent City (that’s New Orleans which of course I just underestimated your knowledge of) and se him there. He – and there – is fantastic.

Wall of Noise Makes Comeback - hold onto your ears

In search of something impressively loud and a complete contrast with the preceding weekend’s plethora of folk music brings us to the estimable Drive By Truckers. In fact it was such a shock to the system – together with the fact that the low stage meant that you could not actually see how many were actually supposed to be on stage (it turned out there was a steel guitar player sitting down and lost from view) that refuge was taken at the side of the stage. Whilst no-one else had spotted this prime location you could actually see what was happening on stage (albeit sideways on) and the sound was just as clear.
They’re a fine rock n’ roll band the Truckers – bottles of Jack Daniels liberally passed around on stage and smoking bans ignored, three lead guitars, a range of lead singers of which Patterson Hood’s has a decidedly honey and whisky-matured sand-papered growl (albeit some way short of Lemmy for which he should be grateful). Also a hugely attentive roadie who led the applause after each song, spotted and dealt with spilt drinks, swapped guitars and generally hovered by the side of the stage dealing with anything and everything that needed dealing with and, by the encores, was sufficiently appreciated by the band that he got to play lead guitar (well, one of three lead guitars actually). In spite of owning a selection of their fine albums – and having seen them a couple of times previously – this time it was almost impossible to distinguish what tracks they were actually playing. But it was played with such enthusiasm and at such high volume that it was pure mindless fun.

Flat Earth Society Makes Plausible Case

A trip to Cambridge for the folk festival, a place renowned for its flatness – it’s true, it is flat and the longstanding festival is still chuntering away – I last went in 1975 and have vague recollections of stunning performances from Richard & Linda Thompson and the beer tent. Be that as it may, the festival has a fine eclectic mix and is not too sanctimonious about what sort of music is let in the door. As is becoming apparent from this summer, one of the highlights was, yes, an old bloke. Allen Toussaint (you see, not an obvious folkie) appeared on stage to give us all a master-class in rolling funk and blues piano with a great fat slab of Noo Awlins (which is also flat and tragically even more prone to flooding). Assisted by a saxophonist, bassist and drummer, they ranged through his back catalogue (Working in a coalmine; Ride your pony and all sorts of songs you’d forgotten that he wrote. And just look at some of the people that have covered his songs - personal favourites including Little Feat, Robert Palmer and Jerry Garcia) interspersed with reminiscences of all the wonderful people he had worked with – see above but also and at most length in his reminiscing, Frankie Miller. Bizarre you will agree, but magic.

Honourable mentions also go to Chris Wood (not the dead one from Traffic and all the better for it); kd lang (spirited Hallelujah but Lenny had already upped his game); Eric Bibb (spotted on three different stages - yes at three different times); Grupo Fantasma and Bassekou Kouytate & Ngoni ba.

One thing you do notice about Cambridge is that it’s not actually very big. This means that you don’t have to go very far to hear some extraordinary things. It also means that you can’t go very far – it’s nothing like Glastonbury where you can trudge for hours (even when it isn’t mud) before you find a little bolthole stage that has a tiny audience listening to the best thing you’ve ever heard. And because it’s run by the council they are very strict about when they close up each night – which worked against the Imagined Village who, straddled by loads of equipment and technology, found themselves with a shorter set than anticipated. Still, you can’t knock a festival that pumps the Archers omnibus edition through its main PA system on a Sunday morning.

The Triumph of the Old - old blokes part 2

Highlight of a fine sunny day (yes, at Glastonbury – weird!) is this long-term pensioner who doesn’t actually appear old and is possibly performing at a level higher than he has achieved in his much-acclaimed past. With a very tightly-knit backing band and fine sound quality Leonard Cohen (for it is he) had the audience in his hand and treated us all to a lesson in how you take a massive crowd without shouting at them. He played his hits from the early bed-sit suicidal student years (the listeners rather than him) through to the blatant “he’s having a laugh isn’t he?” songs which encompassed a thundering, crowd-silencing version of Hallelujah. His original recorded version of this has been left way behind following Jeff Buckley’s rightly lauded reappraisal and various other solid improvements (Rufus Wainwright, kd lang) but his performance here reclaimed it as his own and left all other pretenders in a way distant zone. Breathtaking.
And a final mention for the true fan standing right by me (oh, so too close) who insisted on singing along woefully off-key and occasionally well off on the words too (how many times do you need to hear a chorus to identify that you’re version is not the same as Lenny is singing? More than we covered in So Long Marianne on this occasion that’s for sure). But no matter, Leonard was fantastic and all those of you who weren’t there and raged at him for not agreeing to the BBC coverage, sorry, you should have bought a ticket. A contender for event of the year (in any year).

And so to another man who appears infrequently (but not forced out this time because his manager’s legged it with all his money) to mass adulation from fans and critics alike and is keen that his tickets do not appear on ebay either. Thanks to eagle-eyed attentiveness several months in advance, tickets for Tom Waits’s Edinburgh show ( only appearance in the UK, first time in Scotland in 21 years, second in Britain for four years so perhaps not so rare) were procured and travel arrangements duly, well, arranged with dear old easy jet. Which was just as well as passports had to be shown to match the name on the ticket (mine as opposed to Tom Waits, he got in OK without it). So lots of excitement on a July evening in Scotland (i.e. drizzly and no decent beer to be had for miles). The Playhouse is a fun venue, full of stuffing and looking like a music hall venue with a good atmosphere. The vast majority of the crowd were dyed in the wool fans snapping up the memorabilia – programmes, posters etc – before taking their seats in anticipation. Half an hour later (in an attempt to appear youthful? Most older performers seem to turn up bang on time so that they can get their post-show ovaltine and stilll be in bed before news at ten) the man appears to huge acclaim, milking the audience to applaud more – which they do, banging his foot on a massive drum laid out as a stand for him and covered in powder to billow out with every boom. Showmanship for sure but that’s what he is, and a fine one too. Anyway, backed by his small, tight band (featuring his son at one point) he stomped and hollered and played with the audience sounding somewhere not too far from Captain Beefheart (which is certainly a good place to be even if not particularly crowded), directing the band and audience with stunning and rearranged renditions of great chunks of his back catalogue, most of which I couldn’t recognise but it all provoked much discussion after the show amongst fans so I wasn’t alone. An excellent evening’s entertainment for everyone – Tom seemed to be enjoying himself too – which seems all too rare these days (Van Morrison could certainly learn from it). Another surefire contender for show of the year (maybe the award should be split between indoor and outdoor shows).

The onward march of the Old folks - part 1

Now here’s a way to link together various stars of the summer and actually have a legitimate common theme amongst them. This summer, apart from generally being wet, foul and as unlike something imagined by the Beach Boys as you could possibly get, has seen the old folk coming out into the fresh air and, frankly, knocking all sorts of stuffing out of the young pretenders. So, in chronological order (i.e. when I saw them as opposed to their age which, obviously, is personal information that it would not be for me to divulge, here they come.
So first up is the increasingly balding Steve Earle. Taking a break from crashing around with the Dukes he instead performed a largely solo show at the Colston Hall with simply a selection of guitars, mandolin and banjo and the occasional assistance of wife and support act Alison Moorer and/ or Neil on decks and beats. And it was excellent. The venue was intimate (and yes we are talking about the Colston Hall) in comparison to the Cardiff barn experience and it was refreshing to see the songs take centre stage – with reworkings in a number of cases and not always to accommodate the revised instrumentation. Apparently this tour upset a few people who were expecting that he would do what he normally does. But isn’t part of the point of Steve Earle that he doesn’t do that? Personally I would rather he attempted something different and I for one was particularly taken with the decks support – especially on Satellite Radio. So well done Steve, thanks for being consistently different.

Next up the ever spry Bruce Springsteen showing no signs of slowing down.
Another trip across the river to Cardiff – this time the Millenium stadium which, for a first visit, is some wonderful thing, especially if your ticket gets you onto the pitch. (Although you do seem to have to be lithe, lissome and young and, ideally, female if you are going to be allowed into the select area immediately front of stage. Which I wasn’t.) Having got over the curiosity of where they put the grass, there was a while to assess the surroundings, observe the Mexican waves going round the auditorium and generally feel impressed. Big screens flanked the stage to make you realise that, actually, you were further away than you realised. Unlike Steve Earle, Bruce was in typical mode – i.e. ably supported by the E Street Band making a thunderous racket - special mention to Nils Lofgren for ability and Miami Steve Van Zandt for looking the part. In fact mostly sufficient noise to prevent the tidal wave of noise echoing back from the far end having any negative impact until they stopped.As ever Bruce thundered and stormed and gave his usual 3000% going back into his older material. As is becoming apparent with the longer-established rock star they are no longer embarrassed about their back catalogue and, if it’s good, then it gets included rather than having to wade through the latest album which, frankly, may not hit the spot quite so accurately – Born To Run was plundered for around four or five tracks and all were damned fine. The River was only lightly hit – with just the title track – but it sent me scurrying out to buy it. So you can’t say better than that, and I won’t.
Coming next, even older people . . .

Blasting back with vintage reports

Having spent the summer remarkably busy on your account - but also remarkably at leisure on my own account, here's the start of the winter uploads. This one actually dates back to May and has been simmering away for a while. Here we go.
Welcome back to some favourites and another reliable and exhilarating performance. Yes it's Bellowhead. Multiple award winners for live performance and probably more besides. So not an evening for sitting quietly but one that demanded rhythmic shuffling from the audience as a minimum and possibly leading up to full scale jig mayhem. The venue was the Pavilion in Bath, one of those strange buildings that seem designed for school assemblies but have been transported to a different location. A selection of seating around the edge but the main hall left for twirling, falling over or dancing (or all together of course).
The band – all 11 of them accounted for – proceeded to put on yet another fine display. The edge was slightly taken off by having seen them previously and so the element of surprise was slightly lost but then the edge was put back on because what they play and the way they play it is just so exuberant that you can’t stay still – pity those people hoping to sit through the set. A mix of current (i.e. last album) with a few appetisers from the impending album due some time soon. It should not disappoint.
The support act Babyhead (actually no connection or relation of Bellowhead) played with vigour and enthusiasm with the occasional deranged rant. It was only later that it became apparent that their long set was not eating into Bellowhead’s time but in fact was to enable the headliners to perform their usual set and achieve the Bath Festival organiser’s claim that it was going to end very late (which it just about managed).
A fine time.

Flaxen-tressed rock lothario in roots music shock

Ah, more rock legends. Some would say that this one stands as tall in the pantheon as Neil Young and has, arguably, moved around his musical styles more frequently and with greater flexibility than the previously experienced wonder. Others might argue that he has a lot to answer for with the increasingly hysterical (how ever you want to interpret that word) rock behemoth Led Zeppelin leading astray all sorts of impressionable youth and other musicians. Yes it’s our old friend Percy aka Robert Plant who has taken to the road in the civilising company of Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett to perform their blend of roots and old classics to the masses. You will recall that they have a mega selling album out. Which may explain the choice of venues for this tour, most of them soul-less hangar-dromes, which may get the punters in but don’t lend themselves to the sort of music heard on the album. Maybe they were the bookings for the rumoured but so far unrealised Zeppelin reunion.
Anyway, off to the Cardiff International Arena for one of the early nights of the Europe end of their tour. Now the CIA – as it’s known – is a curious building being coloured an imaginative shade of brown on the outside (imaginative in the sense that you have to ask what on earth they were thinking of to paint it such a depressing colour) and being a vast open space on the inside. We were positioned almost level with the side of the stage and were able to appreciate the full enormity of the place.
But enough, onto the music. A brief blast of the support act had us scurrying to the bar until the main act appeared. Unfortunately if you’re playing an enormodome you need to work very hard on getting the acoustics right and particularly so if your line up includes fiddle, banjo and mandolin. Sadly they hadn’t got it fixed. But looked at differently this worked fantastically well on some of the ethereal Alison Krauss solo tracks – Down To The River To Pray was unbelievably haunting and magical as the echo floated around behind the voices. But on the other stuff it sounded less good. The album was all fine, the old Zeppelin tracks even worked well although the tribute to Sandy Denny was handled better on the burst of Matty Groves that materialised out of the ether (there’s those weird acoustics again – but I hold that it hadn’t been specifically set to produce that effect) rather than the specific dedication to Ms Denny.
Ultimately I have to resort to ambivalence. The band (fine performances from all but special mentions to T Bone Burnett himself, Buddy Miller and Stuart Duncan), Alison Krauss, even tea-swilling Robert Plant were all great. The venue was as uninvolving as it is possible to be with them on stage and us in our seats and a chill barrier between the two and this all fed back to the stage and you felt they were doing their jobs because they couldn’t feed off anything coming from the crowd and so there was no rapport. If it had been in an intimate – or even something half the size – venue then all this would have been resolved. But they wouldn’t have made as much money.

This one’s a big one – in more ways than one

An adventure to London to see a living legend. What do you do when confronted by the possibility of seeing someone perform who has impressed you and the critics and the masses for around 30 years, you’ve bought a stackful of their albums but somehow always missed live? In this case you do whatever it takes to obtain a ticket and then don’t believe that it is actually going to happen until you get inside the theatre and all the signs are that, yes, it is going to happen. At last. (This actually reads like a sub-Mills & Boon teen romance but there you go, it’s all true.) So it was for the trip to Hammersmith to see the mighty Neil Young. And it didn’t disappoint. In fact to make matters better, for those of us who can’t decide whether we like simple acoustic, folksy Neil or blasted out of the aural electric soundscape Neil, he was doing two sets – one of each.
So we started with acoustic Neil (actually not until after we’d had acoustic Pegi – his wife – using most of his band) with our man surrounded by around eight acoustic guitars, a psychedelically-splashed grand piano and a honky tonk upright. Not to mention all sorts of other bizarre stage equipment. Some serious film set size flood lighting, a native American statue (actually looking like an old cowboy film style red Indian in all honesty) stage right, an easel stage left, the stage open to the back so all the guts of the theatrical experience on display.
Anyway, back to the show. Now there are some for whom acoustic Neil is their dreamboat, the keening wail and the gentle strum of an acoustic guitar puts them into heaven. I have a sympathy with this view and have been known to croon along with Only Love Can Break Your Heart; Oh Lonesome Me (oh yes, I know all about heartbroken teenage angst). But I do not sympathise with that competitive school that has to be the first to recognise and applaud the first few notes of whatever he has started to play. And you notice this more in an acoustic setting. That said, the audience were impressively quiet once they’d got this testosterone bout out of the way. But the old man was great, responding to calls from the audience as and when it suited him and changing his mind about what he wanted to play but sometimes going ahead anyway despite his own concerns – generally not shared by the audience, particularly on his foray into a simplistic banjo number.
And then after the interval we had electric Neil with his grand guitar “Old Black” and a change of outfit from his off-white suit to a black paint-spattered suit. (The significance passed me by but if you can spot it then let’s hear it.)
Having chatted at the rear of the stage with the not-entirely-obvious-what-he-was-for artist with the easels and large canvases, Crazy Horse appeared, he moved to the front of the stage, the artist popped up a painting on the easel stage left which served to tell us what he was playing. (So it did make sense after all.) And he proceeded to play it at blistering volume with all sorts of electronic mayhem. Now, if anyone has stuck with the last year’s ramblings they will know that this strikes me as a damn fine thing. What I want from a live performer is something that I cannot get from sitting on the sofa listening to the albums (no matter how loud I turn them up). And this we got in major style. Starting with The Loner from his first solo album and proceeding to ricochet around his back-catalogue up to the latest Chrome Dreams 11 and then back round again we got a real blitz of just unbelievable force wringing and wrenching and throttling his guitar to play how he wanted it to sound. If you want a comparison then, better than any of his own live albums, the only one I can think of is Jimi Hendrix wrestling with Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. Really. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Not easy listening by any stretch and all the better for it. And then amongst the encores we had a beautiful version of Tonight’s the Night before finally ending with something called The Sultan (complete with live on-stage sultan!) which is, apparently, the very first item in his discography, you can’t plunder a back-catalogue much farther than that. So, living legend lives up to expectations. Excellent.

Home, home on the range

And so here we are high up in the Mendip Hills in the pitch January dark trying to look for an unlit village hall that’s set back from the road. So you look for the greatest concentration of lost souls. Yes, it’s folk night. But what a night. In Priddy Village Hall we have (after an impressive instrumental support slot from Tristan from Guildford) Martin Simpson, much acclaimed folk singer/ guitarist, mentioned in the same breath as Ry Cooder by some for his roots work (and we’re not talking teeth or gardening). A strange venue and the swansong of the Old Down Acoustic Club who chose this evening to bow out. Well what a show to go with. And for an aside on them, they have run a fairly amazing series of shows over the years – a Seth Lakeman performance in a pub in Litton stands out as a highlight – and I’m sure Cathy and John deserve a rest but hopefully they will be back to do the things they do.
Despite the slight weirdness of the venue – you half-expected the hall to be surrounded by God-knows-what and that we would have to escape back to civilisation guns blazing – the acoustics were great and Martin Simpson, armed only with a pair of acoustic guitars (am I overdoing this cowboy outlaw angle?) played and played. And also explained what he was up to and where the songs came from in between. Much of the material was from his last – and excellent – album but also thrown in was a Little Feat song that he had learned from a studio demo tape his friend (in California) had found and shipped over – but with an extra verse that didn’t make it to that album. Seasoned readers will know that anyone who knows and likes Lowell George is all right by me but who would think you can discover new stuff on one of California’s finest ever bands from the depths of the Mendip Hills. Cosmic or what?Anyway, it was all taken in the stride of the audience, don’t want to give too much away after all, reserve and all but, underneath it all, we all knew that we had been watching and listening to a fairly stratospheric talent (later confirmed by various awards from Radio 2) matched to deep humanity. What a wonderful man and cracking stuff. Staggering off back into the cold and dark with plenty to think about. Not least, two gigs into the year and they’re going great.

British Psych-folk-rock rides again

It’s January, and what happens in January? You can count on Robyn Hitchcock hoving into view and performing at the Fleece. Trust me, you can set your watch by him. After two – or is it three now? – years performing with the Venus Three (you know, the REM set) this was almost a solo appearance, aided by Terry Williams (I think – but not the Terry Williams I thought) on keyboard and trumpet. Although he also had his sisters on occasional backing vocals, Tim Keegan (who had had the support slot) and some old cohorts – Kimberley Rew on frenzied guitar (no wonder he only helped out on a few tracks) and Morris (or “Morris from Gloucester” as he is always welcomed onstage) on percussion – but those last two only came on at the end. This was, essentially, Robyn-night.
And what we were due to get was his concentration on I Often Dream of Trains. This was a bit of a surprise to me, never having heard of the album, but that’s why you go and see these people – to see what else they can do. And what he can do is still be entertaining and great and musical and so it goes from being completely unknown to something you’d like to hear again. (And this and others are pretty much all now re-released as far as I can tell.) But what – I suspect but will have to prove to myself – you don’t get on the album are the entertaining explanations and asides that splatter around in between the songs so making a grand evening of all round entertainment. I can’t help thinking that his continuing presence at the Fleece suggests that he is not as popular as he should be – although the Financial Times no less were featuring his upcoming show at the Royal Festival Hall so maybe it’s just a Bristol low profile. But if you want your winter blues shaken loose and dumped by the wayside (in a bio-degradable style) then this is your man – and in any format that he chooses to turn up. But for this year you’ve missed your chance. My guess is that he’ll be back – ooh, in January probably. If you want to see him in Bristol anyway.

Oh and by the way, Tim Keegan was good and worth checking out too.

And a very merry wassail to you too

Is it the start of the St George’s backlash? Having praised the venue on various occasions in the past might it have come unstuck with its latest guests? The evening was to celebrate songs of winter and Christmas as presented by Waterson Carthy. These are the individually and collectively celebrated Martin Carthy, his wife Norma Waterson and their daughter Eliza Carthy. In addition to their excellent voices they also have their guitar and violin skills. However, with Waterson Carthy you get a fourth member, so we had Saul Rose on melodeon. But then in addition to that we had a further three singers – going under the collective name of the Devil’s Interval. So seven in all, singing individually and in various combinations, accompanied and unaccompanied. And in such an entrancing manner that you want to be up there with them (admittedly probably not a very good idea). And this was the minor issue with St Georges, it was such a fantastic evening it should have been in your local pub keeping out the cold on a winter’s evening with beer or cider glass in hand and singing along. But instead you got the very slightly clinical atmosphere of everyone sitting quietly – albeit appreciatively – and all the work being done onstage. Which may be for the best but it slightly lacked something. Of course what you got in exchange was the excellent acoustics so that you could hear everything with absolute clarity. (Perhaps I should concede at this point that this is not that much of a backlash.)
They were mostly playing material from their new album – Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man – although they featured at least one that they had unfortunately had to leave off a previous album which was made around 30 plus years previously – so there’s nothing wrong with their memories or depth of repertoire. And so good was this new (ish – it came out in 2006) album that it just had to be bought and became the sound of Christmas. And now no Christmas can be complete without rousing versions of various Wassails (Jacobstowe and Sugar) and many of the other songs. I tried it and, after some scepticism, the enjoyment was infectious. So, if you’ve missed them, get the album anyway, turn it up and sing along – you’ll feel infinitely better for the whole experience. And I have every confidence it’s just as good when the sun’s shining.

It's what girl power was supposed to be

Off to Bishopston once again. This time to check out the recent media hullabaloo that has enveloped Uncle Earl. A bunch of girls (gEarls they would have you believe) who have been taking the bluegrass scene and shaking it by the scruff of its neck. Except according to them it’s not bluegrass, it’s old time or string band. They also throw in gospel, folk, blues, yodelling and clogging to make a deeply lovable brew.
We arrived slightly late – apologies to the support act – to find the joint was sold out – which means full. St Bonaventure’s has a sufficiently low stage and cramped space that when you get a crowd in they are pretty much eyeball to eyeball with the band and it looks more like the stand-off just before a massive brawl kicks off. This was happily resolved by the first few rows sitting on the floor and so bringing a bit of harmony to the proceedings. But maybe the band still felt threatened as whenever they went into an instrumental break – I don’t know that you’d call it jamming – they huddled even closer together. And the stage isn’t big in the first place.
There’s five of them covering fiddle, banjo, double bass, guitar, mandolin and possibly some other odds and ends in there as well. So you can see where the string band idea comes from. Probably in terms of technique they may be on the ragged side (this I hold to be a good thing) but their enthusiasm and love of the music is what matters and they have that by the bucket-load. If you thought Be Good Tanyas were loose then this lot move it closer to unhinged. They also all seem to have their own solo careers and so can switch from background to lead instrument/ singer with ease and a well-honed dexterity. Their inter song repartee involves conversations with each other and the audience as they work out what they’re doing next and what they’ve been doing whilst in the UK. They also kept apologising for the heat (on a typical freezing Bristol night) and the windows had to be opened wide to try to get some air in – hopefully the locals appreciated their free show.
This was the last night of their brief tour and they seemed to have had a great time. They were particularly excited by the prospect of their interval band which comprised their sound man and someone’s son on banjo and guitar and spent much time setting it up. A strained whisper ran round the crowd when they were joined by a rather older third man with his trusty mandolin. Yes it was John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin getting used to a smaller stage prior to his O2 reunion with his more famous chums but he fitted in a treat here. It’s the first time I have seen a band acting as roadie for their roadies and taking photos for their souvenir album but on this evidence maybe more of them should try it. So the second half was, essentially, riotous, with much hollering and joining in from the audience – yodelling too, fine singing and playing from the girls – including the song that Kristin Andreassen entered into a children’s competition (legitimately – she was a child at the time) featuring her acapella other than with Rayna Gellert on schoolkid’s clapping game. And it was really good!All in all a fabulous evening that could have gone on longer – I blame the neighbours – so no time for the hoedown in Mandarin. When they come back – as indeed they must – then go and see them. But if you’re thinking about joining in on the clog dancing then make sure you can take an extended shot at it – the lady from the audience here seemed to have anticipated a shorter encore and was the only one who wanted it to end.

Waiting for Columbus - again

Let’s start with a quiz. Have you ever been disappointed by a show at St George’s? The correct answer is surely not. A small venue created from an early 19th century church, it has perfect acoustics (Radio 3 record some of their classical broadcasts for later transmission here) and an intimate atmosphere which compensates for the regimented seating and slightly clinical air. You will not see people ripping up seats and dancing in the aisles here. But you will be sucked into an involving experience that will leave you in a better place than when you arrived. And it has a great little bar downstairs in the crypt.
So tonight we have Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett, described as the acoustic guitars from Little Feat. And that’s what you get (with a mandolin thrown in). However, this does not do them justice. If you are familiar with Little Feat then you will know that they were a fantastic band started in the very late 60s when Lowell George played Willin’ to his then employer Frank Zappa who told him it was nice and maybe he should form his own band. Now, also famous about Little Feat was that Lowell George was the leader who wiped himself out from cocaine use and abuse (it killed him and the band in ’79) and, when the band decided to reconvene nine years later the lead was increasingly taken by keyboard player Bill Payne. Good but not the real deal.
Now along come these two playing a selection of tunes that you know and love but giving them an acoustic twist and sending them off in a whole new direction. These guys also know the tunes and, what I personally love, an ability to present a song, take it somewhere completely different and either bring it back or end up in another song entirely. This they performed early on with a short foray going from Two Trains to Rocket in my Pocket and then, shortly afterwards, usiing Willin’ as a launch point and then through Don’t Bogart that Joint, Long Black Veil and the Weight (not previously in the Feat canon) and then back into Willin’. If there had been any doubt that this was going to be an impressive evening then those doubts were well gone by now. Paul Barrere is a consummate slide guitarist – and being able to hear his playing outside of a big electric band boosted him up my ratings. Ghost of Lowell George suitably exorcised (appropriately for the venue). And Fred Tackett is no slouch either with some fantastic mandolin playing on Dixie Chicken and elsewhere that more than surpassed the piano work of memory. They played two sets covering much of the original phase of Little Feat’s life with stuff from the Band, Alison Krauss and some other odds and ends and they were just stunningly excellent. If you know Little Feat then you should certainly see this. If you like acoustic guitars playing folk, blues, gospel, rock n roll then you should go and see them. The onstage banter is pretty good too.
You see, another fine show at St George’s. Case closed.

man in hat creates electric storm

Another album another tour. Richard Thompson is becoming the grand old man of folk-rock. Having been present at its birth with his pioneering work with Fairport Convention (a band he helped form and then left around ‘71) he has been solo – albeit with then-wife Linda for a few years – ever since. It is a reflection on the dearth of reasonable mid-size Bristol venues that, if RT (as us diehards know him) is coming to town then the Colston Hall is where you have to go. A hall of suspect acoustics and dire seating arrangements so that the experience is more akin to watching a works safety video and giving the performer some work to do to whip up an atmosphere. Still, the boy has played here often enough in the past so he knows what he has to do.
The show follows the usual pattern of his tours, some tracks from the new album – Sweet Warrior this time – followed by a rummage around his back catalogue. It has to be said that his new album sounds like a return to form – that much touted expression that often means at least it’s not as bad as their recent work (see Front Parlour Ballads – I just listened to it again, hmm) but in this case it definitely seems to stand up with some of the greater, earlier stuff.
You also get an acoustic section. So we were treated to a Sandy Denny vintage Fairport song (Who Knows Where the Time Goes – almost intact) together with a gripping Vincent Black Lightning. No Beeswing but in a way that was quite refreshing in itself. What you get most prominently, however, is some blistering electric guitar work. We were sufficiently close to notice that the finger work was looking increasingly like some crab addled on acid picking and clawing at all the strings in some frenzy. Yay! Whilst each song generally gives RT some range for soloing, this tour’s wig out song is Hard on Me taken from the Mock Tudor album and his guitar is given a serious mangling over about 10 minutes, reminiscent of the pounding that Calvary Cross used to get. Quality stuff indeed and verging on the transcendental. This is not just soloing because he’s a guitar god but seriously exorcising some angst in the way that Neil Young and, yes, old boy Hendrix are renowned for. And it’s fantastic to be a witness to it.
And an honourable mention for Michael Jerome on drums, Danny Thompson on double bass and Pete Zorn on pretty much everything. All had a fine evening with particular credit for their soloing on Al Bowley’s in Heaven. The scheduled support act passed us by – we forgot it was an old folk’s night which means it all starts on time. Hey ho.
So, you get a show that follows the format of pretty much all the shows he does on his tours but within that you get some stonkingly fine stuff that makes the experience new all over again. So I guess I now start the wait for the next tour.

Down in Bishopston, something stirs

The heart of alt.country Americana comes to a parish church hall in the backwoods of Bishopston. How do they do it? When I last went there was a crowd (crowd?) of around 10 for the wonderful Joe Henry. He deserved better – did anyone else know he was playing there? So imagine our surprise to discover what seemed a stadium-size crowd for Richmond Fontaine. A group who won the hearts of all the middle aged rock mags (Uncut, Mojo etc) in the UK a couple of years back, before being cast aside again which maybe explains why they now keep popping up in Bristol. There was some trepidation as to whether they would live up to my own fevered expectations – if they were that good what were they doing in a room previously occupied by so few people? Well not to worry. They appeared as a five piece – two fender telecasters, one pedal steel (alternated with trumpet), bass and drums. As they developed a groove on the first number the guitarist upped and legged it, the others carrying on and paying him no mind. In fact he only reappeared for the closing chords. An interesting start. However, as they got further into their act the better they got. Tracks from their recent albums intertwined with older ones back to Post to Wire – including the fabulously weird Willamette giving them a chance to freak out in a psychedelic style as they used to say. Not to everyone’s taste but definitely mine. In Willy Vlautin they have a songwriter who explores the darker side of life – again, not everyone’s choice but I love a bit of angst-riddled depression – whilst maintaining a relaxed repartee with the crowd. He announced that we’d be able to dance to the next one. We couldn’t and I’d claim no-one even tried. The rest of the band were on the mark too – fine lead guitar and fabulous pedal steel and much better than you’d think dollops of trumpet which really did work. And the bass player has his own solo album out which is some feat (although the track he played for one of the encores suggested his songwriting skills are not as well-honed as Willy’s. So a fine show to the truncated end – he announced they could only play one more and someone pointed out that there were still two listed on his set-list. Blame the cruel burghers of Bristol or something. He and the band were great.

Folk music - it's a young man's world

This item is dedicated to absent friends who were confounded by geography.
Following on from our trip to Frome and the acoustic dungeon it was reassuring to see on the Bristol Academy’s website an endorsement from the NUS that “sound quality is of a high standard”. Good start. It also claims that “the balconies and different levels are perfect for band watching”. Not normally an issue but don’t knock it. So it was with a cheerful step that we bounced out of Zero Degrees (mango beer again?!) along to the venue and into another bar. The reality of the balconies and different levels comment is that if you have got there early and bagged a space up against the railings then great, otherwise you’re worse off than normal. Hey ho.
So to Seth. He seems to be accelerating at a rate of knots having first seen him just under two years ago in the back room of a pub and then through a variety of venues, including the aforesaid Frome dungeon (actually it was bad then too) and, as others have also said, one of the finest performances at Glastonbury this summer and now here he is filling up 1,600 seater venues. Not bad for a folkie. But then he has adapted with the change. On first sighting as a duo with his mate Benji then appearing as the Seth Lakeman trio (there were four of them) and now what presumably is the Seth Lakeman quartet (there were five of them). So you get Seth on fiddle and various (deliberately) four string guitars and a bit of banjo, his brother Sean on acoustic guitar (all sx strings present and accounted for), a double bass player with a sideline in banjo and not one but two percussionists, sharing a full drum kit and bashing away at various bashable things. We have come some way from the traditional folk evening – there were no fingers in ears at this gig! Note for the ladies, yes one of the percussionists was indeed the one that caused such heart flutters and murmurs that time at the Bierkeller. His tub thumping is pretty good too.
Musically Seth covered off early stuff, new songs and everything in between with a solo tour de force on Kitty Jay with just his singing and storming, energised fiddle – no wonder he looks like he’s knicked one of Popeye’s spinach-enhanced arms. Meanwhile there were regular infusions of vast amounts of dry ice – this was either to compensate for the smoking ban or to recreate his Dartmoor home. This was matched with a light show that added to the rock n roll feel. All of which went down a storm with a varied crowd of old gits and student yoof.
Support was Teddy Thompson – who seems to be doomed to this role. Still at least he’s support on good bills (last saw him supporting Lucinda Williams and he was ace). Here he seemed slightly more subdued and the audience, whilst pretty much all in attendance (no mean feat for a support act), took longer to appreciate what he was up to. This may have been aggravated by his recent quest to show people that country & western is good – which it is but some folks just don’t like to be told that. Hah! More fool them I say. He deserves to go big. But Seth is getting bigger ahead of him. Good luck to them both and thanks for a great night.

Woke up this morning, well it's a start

Ah there you go, your expectations are high based on albums you know and love and a previous sighting of their live show. So you sign up for the new tour full of excitement and then what happens? The venue lets you down. Alabama 3 was hotly awaited – you know them, most famous for the Sopranos theme song, creators of some of the finest wordplay in songs and a range of musical styles – acid, country, house music is only the start. Normally fantastic – but no small part of it is that you need to hear what they’re saying/ singing. Sadly at the Cheese & Grain the booming acoustics turned the vocals to sludge. Larry Love’s suggestion that D Wayne Love’s mic should be switched off between songs to avoid offence (none taken) wasn’t necessary because the hall swallowed up all his words and rearranged them into soup. Still, I had heard Larry’s comments so it can’t have been all bad. This acoustic thing can get quite exciting – if you look at the Bellowhead tour blog you’ll see some scandalised comments about the St Albans (I think) show. At the time I just thought it couldn’t make that much difference, everyone can get the mix right and balance it to the hall’s natural acoustics. (For more information look up the Bear’s website [Google Owsley Stanley] which has lots of information on how he used to set up the sound for the Grateful Dead – and they were invariably completely off their faces and still had it sounding good. But I digress.)


Photo by Looby Loo
Anyway, musically the Alabama 3 put on a fine show and gradually cranked up the volume too – it’s been a while since I’ve stood in front of a speaker stack feeling a strong blast of air. Just like those old Maxell adverts they used to have in hi fi mags. Fantastic. All the band did their stuff and, if you knew the lyrics then you knew what was going on. Classics like Hypo Full of Love, U don’t dans 2 tekno, My name’s Johnny Cash (how great is that? Very great). Old stuff and new stuff but good stuff. The light show was clearly designed to flush out any latent epileptics in the crowd but they’re a hardy bunch in Frome so no obvious delirium occurred – or none that required the help of St John’s Ambulance. Thinking of which, why has no live music fan ever signed up for them and so get into every concert free – they never seem to have much to do. Instead it’s always people who are several centuries older than the crowd – although that’s getting harder the longer the old folk go on (ever noticed the fans at some of these things – Van Morrison's are archaic, Pink Floyd's were particularly wretched - and that was over 12 years ago).
And at this point it’s support act time. For this gig in Frome the support act was the Olive Tree just up the road and round the corner. Fine old pub, clean, serves a very nice pint of Courage and also has a good line in thai food. Some slightly wayward interaction with the staff could be put down to country ways – we don’t get down from the hills too often. All of which meant that the support act we were supposed to be seeing we didn’t. I wonder if the acoustics were any better for them.

We're going over the top - hold onto your hats.

So who would have thought, a band that wins the Radio 2 folk award for best live act (quite possibly twice) proves to be a worthy winner. Their show at the Trinity in Bristol was a blistering performance. From the moment they had all managed to get on stage – I counted 11 and there could have been others hidden about although there wasn’t space for them – they laid into a display of music that may loosely be described as folk but travelled all around Europe for its influences. Occasionally there were definitely nods to Three Mustaphas Three (what happened to them?) before veering off elsewhere. The line up comprised pretty much anything that hadn’t been designed to be electric with a strong brass section topped off with sousaphone occupying all the stage right area without falling down the steps – very adept, a selection of fiddles and cello, melodeon (looked like an accordion to me but I’m now wiser), bouzouki, guitar (hey, that’s a normal one), bagpipes, drum kit (another normal one) and endless more that you’ll have to check on their website if you want to know. And all played to great effect to produce a thunderingly good sound.
Anyway, with that line up and vast amounts of energy they stormed through a set of folk songs, dances, reels, probably some jigs and a shanty or two. Napoleon popped up at least once as did tales of hangmen and true love (though not necessarily for the hangman). Dancing was encouraged and led to some fairly deranged attempts – certainly at the back of the hall. Although to suggest that pogoing qualified as a traditional folk dance was possibly going a bit far – but then punk was a very long time ago so maybe it has now legitimately entered the realms of folklore.
If you want a thoroughly good night out whilst getting your exercise in then an evening dancing away to Bellowhead should feature very high on your list. Or to put it another way, my bet is that you won’t see a festival crowd sitting on their collapsible chairs and stuffing their faces whilst this band is onstage. And more good news – they seem to enjoy themselves too.
This place on the page is reserved for the support act and for Bellowhead on this tour you get Chris TT (let’s get the Audi thing out of the way now). Chris seems to take Robyn Hitchcock as his starting point and launches off into the blue yonder – songs featuring hedgehogs, talking trees and civil engineers and bankers. Clearly a man with a sense of outrage and fun (sometimes combined) and some talent too – but nothing you could dance to. That came later.

coming soon - maybe

anyone want to hear about the grateful dead? One of the finest bands that ever roamed the earth although they never had good looking young buck drummers (already in their 20s by the first album and that was ages ago). I could do you reviews of a number of shows they played over the years, you only have to ask.

Van Morrison gets great again

So, one of the wettest summers around and the prospect of Van Morrison playing outdoors. You’d either be a very smug pessimist or an off the register optimist to be viewing that with any enthusiasm. And yet . . .
The man defied all expectations and turned in a stonker of a performance. Now don’t be daft, there was no smiling or audience banter or playing late into the night but clearly there was something going on. Maybe this had something to do with his inspired band which in addition to the usual keyboards, guitar, small brass section also included violin and a selection of slide instruments – dobro, pedal steel and straight electric slide guitar. The connection between all the band and their leader but especially between the pedal steel and violin was something to hear enabling solos from one instrument to continue on with the other fairly seamlessly. Coupled with some interesting oldies – Into the Mystic anyone? – brought the house down. Except it was outdoors and the abbey had already been pulled down several hundred years previously. One particular highlight was the seeming question of “what do you want me to do”? which, before a stunned audience could hit him with requests, turned out to be the instruction to the band for the next song – and very fine it turned out too. As did the weather. Needless to say, for the finale we got a ripping version of Gloria (well there always is one, it’s how you know he’s about to leg it) and then there were fireworks to take our minds off the fact that he wasn’t coming back after that (he never does – so don’t go calling out for Gloria early in a set or you might find yourself short-changed). Fantastic, an addition to the list of Van Morrison shows that you can recall with joy – I have a vague memory his performance at Knebworth back in ‘74 was similarly impressive but we were all younger then

And an honourable mention for Corinne Bailey Rae who did a sterling job of performing whilst everyone stuffed their faces – she deserved better but you can’t interfere with a picnic when the sun’s shining. Those Glastonbury events just keep on getting better. But have you noticed how no-one sits on the ground any more? Time was that you stood up and danced – in a reserved English style or an off your face deranged way (the latter guaranteeing lots of space around you) or you just keeled over on the ground. Ah, the dangerous edge of rock and roll replaced by comfort. Bring on the nurses.