Recent gigs

[davidmjs]

Just back in from the West End Center Aldershot from watching Reg Meuross on guitar/vocals, with Cohan Braithwaite Kiloyne concertina and vocals, and Jali Fily Cissokho?  on Kora playing "Stolen from God". A folk song cycle about the transatlantic slave trade.  Had no idea what it was going to be like, but thoroughly enjoyed it and bought the CD at the half time break.  In between each song there was a reading about the capture and treatment of slaves and their masters

Seemed a good end to the day. After earlier this afternoon replying to an old friend i have known since primary school on face book after his post ranting about Islamic slavers and how they enslaved Christians, and me pointing out slavery has been going on for thousands of years and that many thousands of slaves were taken by Christians, and that he could read about it on Wikipedia.  

Sounds very interesting - unfortunately they're not doing it anywhere I can get to.

Eurgh - whatabouterism at its worst.

[PaulT]

The HU in Bristol last week - Mongolian metal with added horsehead fiddles and overtone singing - first couple of songs were pretty standard metal, could have been any metal band, but their culture started to come through more strongly as the set progressed.  

Support from Skald, whose latest album I'd listened to via youtube... rather disappointing live - way too much tribal drumming and not enough of the light & shade and indeed melody from the album.

Venue was the Prospect Building - bit of a barn, rather basic inside, plenty of food & drink available - at a price!  Angine de Poitrine playing a sold-out gig there next week - my elder son (an accountant) has the Prospect's bar/food manager as a client, so he's going to try to blag me in,

[wayne stote]

The HU in Bristol last week - Mongolian metal with added horsehead fiddles and overtone singing - first couple of songs were pretty standard metal, could have been any metal band, but their culture started to come through more strongly as the set progressed.  

Support from Skald, whose latest album I'd listened to via youtube... rather disappointing live - way too much tribal drumming and not enough of the light & shade and indeed melody from the album.

Venue was the Prospect Building - bit of a barn, rather basic inside, plenty of food & drink available - at a price!  Angine de Poitrine playing a sold-out gig there next week - my elder son (an accountant) has the Prospect's bar/food manager as a client, so he's going to try to blag me in,

A shame to hear that Skald were underwhelming on stage. They're a lot of fun on CD but, not every band can adapt well to the live environment, I suppose.

[Alan2]

Kristin Hersh,  on one  of 2 nights at a a small venue.

About an hour  of music,  but quality.

[Nick]

Saw Lunatraktors and Masal last night in Oxford. Absolutely fine stuff.

Masal are a harp/modulo synth duo, while Lunatraktors are a percussion/a-capella/accordion and occasional hazard-bear costume be-decked duo. Both properly weird and wonderfully complementary, though probably not for the faint hearted!

More of this kind of thing please!

Cheers

Nick

[Will S]

Seth Lakeman last night at the Exeter Phoenix.  First half was the whole of the Freedom Fields album, in celebration of it's 20th anniversary.  Then in the second half we got a run through of highlights from the rest of his career, from his first album right up to the most recent one, and he and the band (Benji Kirkpatrick, Alex Hart, Ben Nicholls and Cormac Byrne) really let rip.  They even got the usually pretty staid crowd up and dancing on a Monday night!  Definitely worth catching them if you can on this tour - they are on fire!

[mickf]

Fairport last night at The Acapela, Pentyrch (the first of two nights at this venue). It was a great evening, with the boys being on top form. First things first, it was Simon's birthday and he was treated to a chorus of 'Happy Birthday to You' from the audience. The evening was mostly what you would expect, but there were one or two surprises   I haven't heard these songs in a while.

My favourite moments were Chris singing the lovely 'My Love is in America', which is one of my favourites of his songs, and Simon's rendition of 'Fotheringay'.

All in all, an enjoyable night that shows there's life in the old dogs yet.

[mickf]

Huw Williams at Barry Folk Club last night. A packed house (it's a small room, but it's the most I've seen in there!) Huw was wonderful. Great songs, very funny stories and all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable night. A couple of Fairport links - He played 'Summer Before The War' and encored with 'Rosemary's Sister'.

[Chris from Fieldtown]

Huw Williams at Barry Folk Club last night. A packed house (it's a small room, but it's the most I've seen in there!) Huw was wonderful. Great songs, very funny stories and all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable night. A couple of Fairport links - He played 'Summer Before The War' and encored with 'Rosemary's Sister'.

That sounds great, loved to have been there.

[StephenB]

Braved the storm to see Sir Ralph for the last time (formally) in Derry on Saturday, and well worth it. He was in superb form himself but the appearance of  for backup on a few songs was a lovely surprise. (Put the spoiler there in case anyone's going to Belfast and wants a similar surprise)
Thanks for the memories Ralph - hope to see you at Cropredy...

[Will S]

Went to see the chaps at Honiton last Friday.  They were on fine form (though I wondered if Ric was having trouble with his fiddle, as he seemed to be (ahem...) fiddling... with it at various points).  But it sounded OK to me.  In fact, the whole thing sounded good to me. I was especially pleased to hear Ric and Chris fiddling together on at least four numbers.  There were certainly at least a couple of numbers dredged up from quite a long time ago, including one from one of Simon's solo albums.  They just seem to go on getting better and better.  I was reflecting on the fact that there was a period when Simon would regularly forget the words to at least one song per gig for a few years, but it must be at least 10 years ago now - and possibly longer than that, and it rarely seems to happen now.

[davidmjs]

Went to see the chaps at Honiton last Friday.  They were on fine form (though I wondered if Ric was having trouble with his fiddle, as he seemed to be (ahem...) fiddling... with it at various points).  But it sounded OK to me.  In fact, the whole thing sounded good to me. I was especially pleased to hear Ric and Chris fiddling together on at least four numbers.  There were certainly at least a couple of numbers dredged up from quite a long time ago, including one from one of Simon's solo albums.  They just seem to go on getting better and better.  I was reflecting on the fact that there was a period when Simon would regularly forget the words to at least one song per gig for a few years, but it must be at least 10 years ago now - and possibly longer than that, and it rarely seems to happen now.

I can recall Simon regularly forgetting the words to songs in the 80s.  This may have been for different reasons...