Venue:

‘The Longroom’ at The Queen’s Head in Box, near Bath

Date: 26/11/2023

On a cold, damp night in November, one warm and nourishing evening.

Very little in the realm of live music performance ever beats sitting 3 or 4 yards from the artist, listening in an intimately small space with the company of a small number of similar enthusiasts to music gently unfolding across a perfectly judged soundscape, neither too quiet nor too loud, and crystal clear in every detail.

As regards last night’s warm and cheerful event, sheltering from a cold, foggy, damp night in the run up to the turning of the year, I could have written here about the quirky venue, the little room at the back of the old pub on the high street of a linear village hanging off the coat-tails of Brunel’s railway and the nearby Georgian grandeur of Bath. I could have marvelled at the layout of the building, with doors off everywhere and rooms sprouting from rooms until you reach the fabled ‘Longroom’ where the action is. I could have riffed on the glitter-costumed splendour of the idiosyncratic eccentricity of the MC, with his Bono shades and his familiar » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford Upon Avon

Date: 03/11/2023

Just as natural as the weather; the band that calls itself Hejira.

We booked our seats for this about 6 months ago, just as they went on sale. Friends who booked a week or so later were nine rows behind us – the place had sold out fast. I’ve looked forward to hearing these songs played with the sort of musicianship and care they deserve ever since I bought our tickets, having been a Joni Mitchell fan since I first heard Big Yellow Taxi on the Light programme one weekend in 1970.

The set list was mostly made up of songs chosen from the four sides of Shadows & Light, the double live album that followed Joni’s album tribute to Mingus, possibly one of her least loved experiments. Before that, as Afterworders will mostly be aware, she’d had a run of completely staggering albums from Court & Spark through to Don Juan’s via Hejira. The fact that it is this last named LP that the band have chosen as their moniker says a lot – it’s laden with jewels. After Shadows & Light, she made a move to Geffen records » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Georges Glass Studio

Date: 13/10/2023

Friday evening, mid-October. Rough old day, full of wind and rain, and traffic warnings on the roads into town. Back’s been playing up again, and those placcy chairs in the upstairs room at St. G’s are murder for more than an hour or so. Coulda stayed at home and plundered iPlayer. Nearly did. So bloody glad I didn’t.

As regular readers of my reports will know, I’m something of a St. Georges groupie; the little Bristol venue makes up about 75% of my gig-going these days, as I’m a fan of sitting down and listening to the music at gigs, rather than wolfing down beer and talking bollocks with mates; that’s for the pub.

I often buy tickets for gigs there months ahead of time; if an interesting evening is listed in their schedule I’ll quite frequently just take a punt in the knowledge that their booking strategy is to book artists for whom sitting down and listening to the music is exactly what’s required. That’s not to say that jiggling about is frowned upon, or that it doesn’t happen, as recent experience with the Orchestra Baobab proved conclusively.

This gig, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Georges, Bristol

Date: 06/09/2023

In Dakar last night, the temperature was slowly falling after a steamy day to a low of about 26 degrees overnight.

At St. Georges, in the middle of Bristol, the same evening started at a sultry 27 degrees, still holding by about 7:45 pm. But then, over the following nearly two hours, it shot up to what I estimated to be at least a sweltering 35 degrees. My T-shirt was soaked. Despite this thermogeddon, like everyone else around me, I found myself dancing, lost in the flowing, sinuous magic that enveloped me from the stage.

Hot? Sweaty? Legs aching? Sure. Absolutely bloody wonderful, joyous and life-affirming. After two months of feeling diminished and depleted by an unexpected illness, miraculously I finally felt ALIVE again. I couldn’t stop grinning. It made me so happy I nearly cried.

The source of all this personal and collective joy was a nine-piece band I’ve been keen to see play live since the day I bought ‘Great Moments In Vinyl History’, and then the mighty compilation known as ‘Pirates Choice’. The band was Orchestra Baobab, and like the rest of the grinning, dancing, clapping, smiling » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Peter and St. James Church, Norton St. Philip, near Bath.

Date: 29/04/2023

A double-whammy episcopal weekend for me this Bank Holiday; Friday night in the mighty nave of Bristol Cathedral, and then last night in the delighful, reassuring and quintessentially C of E confines of the Grade 2* listed 14th century parish church of Norton St. Philip in Zummerzet.

We’d driven a fair way to reach the village. It’s famous amongst my peers for the real-ale-tastic delights of The George pub, originally a 14th century wool store for the local priory, happily repurposed as a less industrial and mightily more appetising coaching inn in the 17th century, when folk like Samuel Pepys dropped by for a swift half from time to time while traipsing between Bath and Salisbury. The whole village, situated where it is on a major route to and from the Georgian city, and surrounded by wealth and agricultural fecundity, is stacked with historical architecture from Roman times onwards.

Enough of the Griff Rhys Jones waffle; the real reason we’d made the trip was to see and hear Sarah McQuaid play at the start of another of her brilliant small-venue tours. I’ve sung her praises » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Bristol Cathedral

Date: 28/04/2023

Lady Maisery in dub?

Not really, but Lady Maisery deep in a glorious well of bottomless, mile-wide reverb?

Splendid!

Last night we drove into Bristol for the opening gig of the Bristol Folk Festival, which is happening across the weekend of the 29th and 30th of April. We are not necessarily what you’d call folkies, though all of the local folk venues occasionally tempt us with their invariably uncomfortable chairs. Last night we ventured out after the working week simply because the band was Lady Maisery; we’ve seen them three times now, and once in their guise as ‘Awake! Arise!’ with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith, and the three women who make up this wonderful assembly are all spectacularly talented musicians who always manage to conjure magic for us.

After opening the Folk Festival yesterday they are embarking upon a tour – you can see the rest of the dates here: https://ladymaisery.com/tour-dates.

For the uninitiated, the band consists of Hazel Askew, Hannah James and Rowan Rheingans, three of the most accomplished and adventurous artists in modern folk. They are very much on the progressive edge of modern folk. There’s no » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Georges, Bristol

Date: 16/03/2023

Never mind the arithmetic.

Twice three gets you three times the fun.

Two complete sets from two very different trios in our favourite Bristol venue, with its extraordinarily clean acoustic, perfect for the instruments they play. Two trios composed of absolutely top flight musicians, both trios at the top of their respective games, one well enough established to already have several CDs out there under their own name, the other a brand new trio whose debut CD would be my first target at the merch table at half-time.

Both trios are composed of musicians whose careers to date have spanned umpteen previous bands, multiple solo releases and all sorts of interesting collaborations. A veritable sextet of serious serial sessioneers, collaborating in threes to beguile us.

I’d bought the tickets when the gig was first announced, so we had our favourite seats booked, and we’d even ordered and paid for interval drinks – a luxury we rarely dare. How excellent, to have the whole evening ahead and the promise of top flight music.

First we had to get there; it’s only about 15 miles to the middle of Bristol » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. George’s, Bristol

Date: 01/03/2023

On March 1st 1973 I was a first-year sixth former, enjoying the minor privileges afforded to those of us who had endured and survived the rigours of O Level pursuit and had stayed on board for another 2 years looking for A Levels and probably, hopefully, University beyond that. Privileges that extended to being able, finally, to venture beyond the school grounds at lunch time without risking dire punishment.

My friends and I, being of a great-coated, patchouli-smelling persuasion, usually headed into town at lunchtimes, whether to pilfer books from the Polytechnic Bookshop or to drool over the LPs available from the recently opened Virgin Records store, staffed by long-hairs, that was festooned with bean bags and old leather armchairs in which we could lounge while listening to the latest LPs we couldn’t afford.

On days when we didn’t feel like schlepping all the way over the hill into town, we’d slum at the local shopping centre, maybe in W.H. Smith, who also sold some records, in Goodbodies Cafe where a milky coffee could be had and we might smoke the odd rollie if we dared, but most commonly we’d descend » Continue Reading.