Venue:
Shropshire Showground, Shrewsbury
Date: 26/08/2016
My return trip here, finding the ambience right up my street: not too folkie, unless you want that, a wide definition anyway of folk and you can park by your tent, none of that cross-country endurance hike mullarkey with your house on your back. So with the sun high in the sky I arrived, eager for the fray. Tom Robinson, yes that one, was first up, with me hoping he hadn’t seen my review of his new (see Nights In), and hoping he would only play old. He played old, and it was a delight, gamefully playing bass, as he always did, rather than coasting with an acoustic strum. All the hits were sung along with gusto and it gave an uplifting boost to kick things off with. Blackie & the Rodeo Kings were on next and were terrific, their folk and country roots well hidden in a 4 to the floor robustness, drawn from, apparently, 32 years of gigging, 26 with the same line-up. The 3 front men were clearly having a ball, playing and singing their black Nudie suits off, Tom Wilson clearly having morphed into a bear since his album cover shots. At times they sounded like an updated version of fellow canucks, The Band, that thought really hitting me as they played Long Black Veil, albeit a second or so before I recognised the song. Colin Linden shone on what looked a guitar/dobro hybrid and Stephen Fearing was just the epitome of your cool bachelor uncle. Wonderful.
http://i1353.photobucket.com/albums/q678/Xuxi58/CIMG2435_zpsevwjq7fu.jpg
Given then the choice between Dervish, high octane irish traditionalists, or Edward II, reprising their 2nd 90’s incarnation, I opted for the latter. Probably 20 years since I last saw them, it was if they hadn’t left off, the melodeon reggae fusion a treat, just working where it shouldn’t, in no small part to the rastas in the band, laying down a solid base (bass?) for the melodies to spark from. Mainly based around their new and commended record, Manchester’s Improving Daily, spreadsheet songs from the industrial revolution all, they were augmented, as on the record, by Jennifer Reid, a delightful unaccompanied singer, who interspersed several of the songs with her own, more faithful, perhaps, versions of the original, but with none of the folkie affectations so redolent elsewhere on occasion. Wonderful, and I went to tent happy, the dubby basso profundo notes of Tee Carthy, no relation to anyone else of that name playing the folk circuit, I’ll wager, resounding in my ears.
The audience:
Mature is, I think, the word. OK, a smattering of teens and twenties, but mainly 40 plus, with a strong bias toward the higher end, sprinkled with lashings of grandkids, presumably dumped so the parents could avoid the music their parents made them listen to when younger. Loads of dogs but not in the music marquees. Old hippies, old folkies, old normal looking people, the XL size likely selling out first in the concessions. Happy people enjoying themselves. Enthusiasms unbridled, awash with beer, there being more than your average real ale festival available, yet no unpleasantness, artists mingling with their audience after in the bar.
It made me think..
Why can’t real life be like this?
Day 2: Up with the lark and my bladder, this was my opportunity to tour the campsite after my jaunt into the town for a full english. I am pleased to report that fellow blogger, @cheshirecat, absent here of late, was indeed here, as ever, primarily in singing and dancing mode, the former of whichI was later able to witness in the bar, and a solid ringing sound it is too. Music kicked off today with the Urban Folk Quartet, um, 4 musicians on fiddles, guitars and a remarkable home made drum kit. Too cleverly sterile for me, this had more finesse than substance to my ears but it was barely afternoon. John McCusker I had been eagerly anticipating, having followed his career since he was a wee boy in the Battlefield Band. He didn’t disappoint, supported by a band of mainly youngsters, returning the favour he was given by elders when their age, and with guest slots from Heidi Talbot, his wife, and, on one song, their 4 year old daughter, and from Graham Coxon, looking a little out of his depth. Sheelanagig looked the look of urbane hipster dudes but sent me scurrying back to the other tent as their steampunk gypsy swing palled to my ears, clinical application masquerading as spontaneity. Luckily it was back to the Rodeo Kings 2nd set of the weekend. And then, a couple of hours later, there was Stephen Fearing again, doing a well received solo set. http://i1353.photobucket.com/albums/q678/Xuxi58/CIMG2439_zpsyhjdupku.jpg
Andy Irvine is a legend and to see him sing and play is a delight. With a mix of old and trad, newer and not, interspersed with references to how and why he played the songs and first heard them, an hour or so disappeared effortlessly, his voice unchanged these 40 odd years between Sweeney’s Men, Planxty, Patrick Street and his still thriving solo career. His solo version of As I Roved Out was particular standout, replacing Liam Og Flynns pipes with raggedy harmonica that somehow added rather than detracted the poignancy of the lyric. Saturdays headliners were being eagerly anticipated by all, the trio of Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack and Andy Fairweather-Lowe. Just the 3 of them and 3 acoustic guitars, playing a mixture of country standards and whatever might muster for their individual greatest hits. Despite Fairweather-Lowe being a complete tart, milking all he could out of his age, surprisingly only 68, his songs, Wide Eyed and Legless and all those Amen Corner hits, well, both of them, received the most acclaim, perhaps underscoring the demographic. And he plays a mean guitar. Carrack shone with Over Your Shoulder, a sentence I never thought I would write, with Nick Lowe almost content to be sidesman, though he did get to play Cruel to Be Kind ahead of, inevitably, as encore, What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding. Indeed.
Day 3: Still with me? Sunday was often wet, so Mark Radcliffe’s Galleon Blast inexplicably drew me in from the deluge. I had seen them before, the draw being Mr Radcliffe, a competent enough drummer, wisecracking between a collection of shanties by perhaps the most disreputable parcel of folk-rock rogues imaginable. I made my eventual excuses, being keen to see Skippinish, last minute replacements for Shooglenifty, interested mainly in their 3 bagpipe “horn section” With the ex-singer from Manran now in their fold, this was high calibre celtic rock and would, in any other company, have excelled, as will unfold shortly. Barnstar I had not heard of, but I had heard of Mark Erelli, their guitarist. A loosely bluegrass band, in instrumentation, harmony vocals and sharing the one microphone at least, they had a range of songs both out and in the strictness of the idiom. The star in my eye was one Taylor Amerding, mandolin player extraordinary, and father of the fiddle player. Looking all of a very dapper 80 year old country gentleman, he kept a pace the banjo, guitar, fiddle and stand-up bass had to struggle to maintain, as well as having one of the sweetest tenor voices. Sunday close was the Treacherous Orchestra, current darlings of the festival circuit, cropping up equally at mainstream as folk based. 11 stars of the scottish renaissance in folk music, with the odd irishman coming together in a frenzy of (yes, more) bagpipes, fiddles, accordion, rhythm section, synths and samples. Full on party mode onstage led swiftly to the same contagion hitting the audience. Was this heavy metal, dance music or what? If Blowzabella are said to have a wall of sound, this was a brick shithouse of noise. Tuneful noise, blowing the top of the marquee off. And even Skippinish, with their 3 pipes couldn’t possibly compete with the twin powerhouse of Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton. Even Ali Hutton couldn’t, his chanter snapping towards the end, requiring a shared effort, one hand of each playing the same set of pipes. Mayhem and madness aplenty. If you get the chance, go see.
(Sorry, no pics, photo bucket seeming to have given up the ghost entirely by now…And, as I type up my corrections, Edith, as in Fnuction, has helpfully typed that I now have to put such links in a different format now. Which is beyond me.)
Phew, Day 4, flagging now. (Aren’t we all, chips in Edith). I had to stay into this final day, as my stars of last year were playing again this. This would be Jarlath Henderson and Ross Ainslie with their band. Who, you say? More bagpipes, I’m afraid, Jarlath Henderson, wunderkind of the Uillean pipes, and whose solo album is in my top ten of the year so far, not least as he has suddenly grown the voice of Paul Brady. Ainslie, featuring last night in the Treacherous Orchestra on highland pipes, here is in lowland small pipes mode, bellows driven rather than puff. His co-Treacheous piper, Ali Hutton, here plays the most competently rhythmic guitar accompanyment you can imagine, with the rest of the band being also stalwarts of last nights brick shithouse. Technically brilliant weaving and jousting of pipes and whistles, whistles and pipes then ensues. Rousing heart lifting stuff. Year 2 for me at Shrewsbury, same band best for me both times. If you don’t like folk music, get their stuff. If you hate the bagpipes, get their stuff. I mean it.
I really wanted to just go home now, but held on for Raghu Dixit, indian folk-rock from Kanartika, accent on rock. Unusual as not a sitar in sight, being standard rock band plus fiddle. But the music was definitely indian. Finally I felt I should see Eliza Carthys latest. Another 11 piece featuring not a few faces well known at this sort of event, this was supposed to contain every semblance of music under one tent. All very accomplished. I left midway through the 2nd song.
A fabulous 4 days. This really is a star in the festival firmament, well organised, well run, excellently curated and big fun. I’ll be back
Very enjoyable review, Retro. You are certainly packing those gigs in.
Delighted to read that @thecheshirecat is in good health and singing and dancing like a good ‘un.
I will browse around YT and try and take a listen to those acts I’ve not heard of. Good to hear that the Red Hot Polkas are still going strong. The new album is on Spotty. Excellent!
Sounds great, Retro. Envious of seeing Treacherous Orchestra – that record got a lot of love from me last year. Must be twenty years since I saw Edward II as well, in the students union at Manchester University. They were great fu, I must dig out my old CDs of theirs.
Thanks for all the pointers as to things to listen to, both old favourites and new.
Jarlath
Raghu