Venue:
Lichfield Guildhall
Date: 24/02/2018
I hadn’t realised Jim Moray was a local boy, well Stafford’s not far, being a scion of both Stafford and Lichfield Green Man (R.I.P.) Morris, which figures. And he seems to be running his career in reverse to the direction of folk music and it’s myriad “revivals”. My first exposure to him, probably a couple of decades ago, was all loops and laptops, now he is staunchly folk-rock, as in meat and potatoes rock band play the Childe ballads. False Lights, his band alongside another Folk Awards of yesteryear star of the future, Sam Carter, are a deliberate and focussed echo of the 70s, some good, some less so. This mini-tour is about the launch of their 2nd disc, released and purchased barely a fortnight ago.
Acting as his own support, and spiralling further down the time tunnel of trad.arr., he and band fiddle player, Tom Moore, gave half an hour of very Carthy and Swarb acoustica, only his straining and plaintive alto differentiating from that template. In a cold hall, it took or song or threee before he and the audience relaxed into it, even if they rejected a singalong offer for a song about space, perhaps the only original song heard all evening.
20 minutes to stock up on some ale and the lights get switched off again, and the 6 piece band troop on, Moray and Carter both toting expensive looking electric guitars, with fiddle and melodeon to one side, drums behind and bass to the back. Track 1, side 1 (sic) of Harmonograph, Babylon, rings out, all clangs and drangs, with the slight whiff of remembrance of, was it, Oysterbands use of the same song?. Thereon it is a fairly no holds bang through of most of the new album, with tasters from the last, their debut. A slowed version of Black Velvet Band, yes, the Dubliners’ one, but, as announced, nothing like it, provides early ballast from what, at times, was at risk of becoming overly generic and, once or twice, leaden. Thankfully such moments were few, but this is the risk of this type, 4:4 being a rhythm whose subtlety often lacks. (Skewball, supposedly the stand-out of their first record, is the main offender, but I don’t like it as a song, even the Planxty version.) To remind us this is the 21st century, Moray introduced odd snippets of electronica, looped claps and any number of guitar gizmos, which certainly livened up the proceedings, most notably on Wife of Ushers Well. The ensemble playing was superb. Largely eschewing solos, when all the instruments in full pelt, the sound fleshed out into almost a brass-like cadence I found particularly effective. A special word for the bassist, name unknown, depping for an absent Barn Stradling, and playing to the songs all on a music stand. You wouldn’t have known of any unfamiliarity from the sound, dub low notes, nimbly tripping high in the mix. Superb. Vocally I had always assumed Moray the lead partner, this notion now firmly disabused by Carter, who probably sang the more. Texturally of similar tone and timbre, he sounded slightly clearer and more confident. And I speak as a fan of Jim Moray’s vocals. I certainly found myself browsing his back-catalogue this morning.
About 80 minutes and it is to the fitting finale, by way of an excellent reconstruction of Murder in the Red Barn, the Shirley Collins magnum opus from No Roses. Crossing the Bar, lyrics by Alfred Lord Tennyson no less, remains their piece de resistance and is largely unlike the rest of their repertoire, churchy keyboard intro building to epic proportion, extinguishing most of my earlier grouches around heavy-handedness. A terrific song they will struggle to ever better.
A nice touch was to have the band regroup, a capella in the aisle, for the encore, audience participation invited and duly given.
False Lights are probably a bit of an anachronism. But, in the right setting and the obvious love and enthusiasm demonstrated for the material and the arrangements some how give them a credibility. File as the Fairport to Offa Rex’s Steeleye. And probably best seen outdoors at a festival.
The audience:
Hmm, cue @colin-H and his busted flush….. Lichfield Arts aren’t a folk club but they could be, floor singers being the only thing missing, thank the lord. But the audience were definitely too old and respectable for the band, the fiddle and melodeon players being possibly up to 50 years younger than their audience. They gave rousing applause, though, perhaps suggesting they were there the first time these songs were ever aired with electricity. I didn’t win the raffle, either.
It made me think..
I still like folk-rock after all. (But I am not buying tickets for when Fairport come playing here in May. Definitely not. Unless I do.)
Back in the years BC (Before Children) I was tipped off to Jim Moray by Eddi Reader’s manager (who went on to drop ER as a client, such was her enthusiasm for Jim).
After a gig at the Cambridge Folk Club, surprising because he kept the laptop in its bag and played acoustic all night, I gave him a lift to the promoter’s house. I made him a cup of tea, which he took without milk and with heaps of brown sugar. Black tea with brown sugar, I ask you.
Years later my toddler daughter loved his Sweet England LP and Sprig of Thyme single enough to make our way to the front during his Cambidge Folk Festival set. You can see her on my shoulders during the telly coverage, screaming with joy as Sprig Of Thyme kicked up. I doubt there were many other 2-year-olds in his audience.
If you can find his “I Am Jim Moray” EP that preceded “Sweet England”, that is pretty good too. I don’t think it was ever officially re-released after the original limited number of copies sold out, but there were hooky downloads available. Jim didn’t think it good enough, after he’d had some success with Sweet England and his second self-titled album.
Yes, I have that courtesy of Eddi’s manager (I worked in the biz at the time, so barely paid for anything). I really liked his early laptop stuff and got him an interview with Sound On Sound.
With Jim, Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby et al, there did for a moment appear to be a young persons’ 21st century folk revival going on. It was a bit like punk in 1976 (I imagine).
Maybe there is a point there, but maybe not the one you seek and I want. Of course the veterans of punk are still on the road, raddled sixty year olds with guts and greying mohicans, Bearded Theory Festival always digging out a few, with UK Subs, Ruts DC and the Membranes being this years offering, their core audience being as elderly as the folk audience of Lichfield. In the dance tent, too, the acid house generation are all knocking on a bit. Is my moan about audience ages more to do with the anachronism of congregating together to listen to live performance, which is slowly dying out? Festivals apart, I don’t seem to see many under 40s at concerts at all. OK, I am not going to see Little Mix and the like, who can seemingly fill out enormodomes, but how many of the youngsters going are there because their 30 something parents want to go too, being remnants themselves of the great gig going public.
I think there are still a decent number of 20-somethings and 30-somethings going to see live music, but you may have a point regarding the teens.
I’m not sure that teens are very interested in music any more. It’s ubiquitous to the point where it’s unimportant. They don’t have to think much about it because it’s just there all the time in the background while they’re doing the other things they do.
Apart from the few with an interest in making the stuff, of course. They’re paying attention to it.
@Mike_H not my experience in the record shop I work in. The biggest spenders are the youngsters from say 16 to 25 and females being in the majority. Also heartwarming that they are buying decent stuff and not all Beyonce/Taylor Swift stuff not that there is anything wrong with them.
An enjoyable gig in Lichfield’s Guildhall last night, watching False Lights.
And, Lo & Behold, I see that @retropath2 reviewed it accurately a little over 5 years ago! Prescient.
Sadly, no bass player last night – I was hoping Jon Thorne would be present – but adequate bass cleverly appeared from somewhere on stage.
The band was sometimes a bit one-paced and sometimes too loud but always enjoyable. Audience was still old, as am I.
Highlight of the night for me tho’ was Sam Carter’s short solo set. What a talent.
I was there too, @peanuts-molloy ! Wish I’d known or knew what you looked like. I quizzed Carter and Moray afterwards about the bass, each entirely happy to admit it was part of the tapes and effects that Moray spent a fair bit of time fiddling with: a gizmo smaller than a mobile phone. He had a fair few pedals also, didn’t he? Finance seems the main reason, the 5 piece quite expensive enough, especially when neither Jon Thorne or Barn Stradling available, each of whom have played for/with the band.
@retropath2
Ha! I’ve just seen your photo on the site you review for and I’m pretty sure we stood side by side at the bar ordering the first pints of the evening (only pint for me, regrettably, as I was driving).
I wish they’d announced the source of the bass from onstage – would have saved me some pondering.
Lots of effects. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen a Godley & Creme Gizmo used live on stage (to no great advantage, really).
To my tinnitus blighted ears Archie Churchill-Moss’s melodeon was lost in the mix and I would have been happy if the drummer’s cymbals had also been lost (good as he was).
All in all a good night which will prompt me to seek out a solo gig by Sam Carter.
One for @peanuts-molloy :
https://atthebarrier.com/2023/10/16/false-lights-lichfield-guild-hall-live-review/
Lovely review @retropath2 – spot on.
I’m still slightly miffed about the bass (not least because I would have liked to see Jon Thorne!) as it was integral to the sound and would’ve been good to see it being played live on stage. I have no problem at all with loops, pedals and such enhancing the sound, but an acknowledgement that some of the core music was being generated elsewhere would have been good . . .
And I think I was a bit harsh on the drummer up above – he played really well and my tinnitus is (probably) not the fault of his cymbals!