Venue:
The Barbican, London
Date: 18/06/2024
I’ve been very taken with Aoife’s latest album, All My Friends. It’s a continuous series of songs celebrating the centenary of womans suffrage in the USA and is a commissioned work featuring an orchestra and a girls choir. So when I saw that Aiofe was performing it with orchestra and choir at the Barbican I jumped at the chance to attend, particularly when it became clearly she was only doing it once on this UK tour. I was lucky to get very good seats in the second row of the stalls. It was a bit off-kilter as we were right in line with the drummer whereas the strings and in particular the girls choir were on the opposite side. I read someone on FB saying the vocal were lost but they sounded fine from where I was seated. At the peak there were probably 50 performers on stage, of whom 3 were male, namely bass guitarist Euan Burtin, kit drummer Dave Hamblett and the conductor Eric Jacobsen who Aoife introduced as her husband but pointed out he was a professional Conductor and not someone she’d told to stand there and wave his arms about. Euan and Aoife were only 2 who weren’t reading music. There was one notable moment where Aoife retuned her guitar, clicked her tuner pedal to unmute the guitar and at the very last second suddently moved her capo by one fret. She than started picking softly while looking straight at Euan who nodded to confirm she was in the correct key. What could possibley have gone wrong there? Anyway, what of the performance I hear you cry? Well, I thought it was a treat. Pretty much everything I’ve been enjoying from All My Friends was there, except surprising the final track The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. It is by far the most complex orchestration so maybe they didn’t fancy it in light of restricted rehearsal time. But the album performance was interspersed and augment by some earlier Aoife material including songs from Fossils, In The Magic Hour and Age of Apathy. Euan’s partner Siobhan Miller came on to sing backing vocals on one song. As her 2nd encore Aoife played and sang a solo version of Joni Mitchell’s You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio. A nice finish to a delightful evening.
The audience:
A good house, and a respectful and attentive audience.
It made me think..
How much work went into that, for just one performance on this tour! As Aoife said at the end, a huge number of people contributed to its success. I’m glad I got to see it
Slightly jealous…I’ve followed Aoife’s career since the 2013 album Fossils, thanks to Carolina, late of this parish…one of several great artists she introduced me to over the years.
But haven’t seen her live (if she ever played in Sweden, I never knew about it).
This year’s album is truly wonderful – although I’m not keen on the Dylan cover, so its absence wouldn’t have bothered me.
Would have loved to have been there for this. We’ve seen Aoife perform several times as part of I’m With Her, and she always impresses. By the sound of it, I think I need to check out her latest solo album….
Great review – had I have been aware of it I would have made the effort to go.
Sounds like a great night and I guess this must have been funded as it must have been costly to put on.