About 800 people crammed into New Brighton's misnamed theatre in the sticky heat of the evening on one of the hottest days of the year so far - and they closed all the doors and cooked us even more. Consequently there was no atmosphere and a lot of very hot people when Elbow Jane - tonight's support - appeared un-announced onto the stage. I'm doing all this negative stuff now because its mostly down to the venue - tatty, hot, airless and I guess only used because its got the most seats in Wirral? The fact that there was no compere was an opportunity missed - in fact the rather staid recorded message about not taking photographs made this even worse - 800 people and no good word for the local folk scene?
Enough. Elbow Jane - our third chance to see them this year - and the last chance to see them for a while because they are all going to be otherwise engaged for a few months over the summer. Now with the superstar-in-waiting Joe Topping fully integrated into the band, Elbow Jane grasped their chance to impress a new audience with all their energy and produced a short but accomplished set, opening with "Shape of my Heart", sung by Joe Topping with aplomb, and moved on to their own compositions: "Ecclesiasties" and "Soul Survivor". Then we were delighted to have Joe Wright come on to play a few fiddle tunes with the band, and then take up his mandolin for the grand finale - "Lean on Me". Elbow Jane have a wealth of talent and if they continue to explore the possibilities offered by making use not only of Joe Topping's undoubted skills, but also those of Joe Wright, we might have a folk-rock powerhouse in the making - I personally hope so. Short and sweet then the support, then an unexplained gap while they changed the stage over before some new people came on - oh, no, its not the roadies - that must be Kate Rusby then....
Four dull men and Kate Rusby in a bright pink dress - not that the band was dull to listen to, its just that they were all in black and/or grey, so Kate stuck out really well. The audience obviously contained a lot of existing fans, and Kate was soon into her well developed style of banter between songs, encouraged by the laughter and friendly heckling that came her way. This has, apparently developed over time as she used to be so shy on stage that she could hardly announce the songs, and to be honest it felt a little forced at times and I've heard a few people say that they find it a bit tiresome. It might even be argued that this persona is doing her a bit of dis-service and that there is a much stronger "real" Kate Rusby hiding away behind it - then again, it seems that lots of people like it and she certainly made us smile a few times!
Musically (at last!) the experience was quite good - the band are really good - John McCusker (Kate's husband) played fiddle, guitar and Bazooki, Andy Cutting on diatonic accordions, Andy Seward on upright bass and Ian Carr on additional guitars - an interesting total lack of percussion note - although John McCusker managed to find a good sounding board to stamp his right foot on! I was particularly pleased to be able to hear Andy Seward's bass clearly separated from the other instruments - full marks to the sound engineer - and he was well worth listening to. And what did they play? Quite a selection of songs and even a few tunes - highlights for me being Richard Thompson's "Withered and Died", "Fare thee Well" which had a lovely rich bass, and John Mc on a low whistle and "Young Jones" which featured a rather exciting rhythm. Kate has a lovely voice and whilst she only sang two songs I'd heard before - "You Belong to Me" and "Canaan's Land", it was quite a pleasant experience. I have to say that there were a couple of occasions when the band got a bit louder and Kate struggled a bit to match the increase, and I think this is what leads to the accusations that all the songs sound the same - I don't think this is strictly true but it does maybe limit the repetoire a little.
By the time the concert drew to an end I was struggling a bit due to the heat and lack of air which may have clouded my views slightly, but I was impressed by the way they coped with Ian Carr's broken string - turning it into a comedy routine. The vaguely soporific feeling was re-inforced by choosing "Canaan's Land" as a closer, because it fades out rather than reaching a climatic ending to the night, then Kate gave a solo rendition of "Underneath the Stars" as an encore.
I don't want to give the impression that I didn't enjoy this concert, because I did, but the venue didn't help and I'll think twice before going back there in the summer.
So we had a bit of a chat and browsed the stall, then set of en masse for Fort Perch Rock - banged on the door and shouted a bit, only to find a rather bemused resident wondering what this gaggle of folkies wanted so late at night - turns out we had the wrong venue and had to set off back inland to a pub of the same name! Sorry folks. Anyway, the pub was packed and hot, so we set up a fringe meeting outside and had a cracking time - thanks to all for a great session!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment