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Richard Thompson’s 70th birthday bash

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Venue:

The Royal Albert Hall, Kensington

Date: 30/09/2019

What a night. What a phenomenal night! How to celebrate this extraordinary man who has spent more than 50 of his 70 years writing extraordinary songs of apolalypse and redemption, and coupling them with unmistakable guitar playing to the acclaim and adulation of far too few? Stick on a big gig at a prestigious venue and bring along a bunch of family, friends and acolytes to help out, that’s how.

From the get go we were promised an evening of song, friendship and nepotism by our MC Jack Thompson (Richard’s youngest, you see what he means?) and that’s what we got in spades. It is in the nature of a guest list show, with every performer getting one or two songs before making way for the next, that you hope for a collection of highlights rather than a consistent narrative, so I’m going to lean heavily on the setlist which someone stuck up on Setlist.fm with admirable speed and comment on each one, rattling through the songs and guests off the top of my head rather than tackle the evening in themes. The result is far too long and barely edited so feel free to skip through looking for names you are familiar with.

Richard took to the stage with his current trio band, Mike Jerome on drums and Taras Prodaniuk on bass, enhanced by guitar tech Bobby Eichorn on second guitar and current partner Zara Philips on backing vocals. Perhaps it was the up scale venue, but he spurned his recent superannuated biker look of sawn-off denim jacket from a smart brocaded frock coat (swapped for a plainer black number in the second half). I love this band though I know that others, Hubert Rawlinson included, are less keen so it was a disappointment to find that the music was swampy as lacked treble up in the gallery, and I wondered if I was to suffer the notoriously bad RAH sound. Thankfully about halfway though the opening number, The Storm Won’t Come, from superb and most recent album 13 Rivers, word got to Bobby who fiddled with a lead on stage and suddenly the hall was flooded with that wonderful, sulphurous Richard Thompson electric guitar sound.

Then it was straight on to the guests. Although this wasn’t a chronological retrospective first up was Richard’s old school friend Hugh Cornwell, better known as a Strangler than from the pair’s teen adventures in Emil and the Detectives. An efficient run through of Tobacco Road, from their old setlist, was followed by the unlikely sound of Richard and Hugh partnering on Peaches, then Hugh’s own The Most Beautiful Girl in Hollywood. This generosity in not only sharing his stage with his guests but performing their songs as much as his own was repeated through the night.

Cue some former Fairports, including band founder Ashley Hutchings (Simon Nicol was apparently stranded on holiday and Ashley’s son Blair Dunlop stood in). Blues in My Bottle and a snarling Jack O’Diamonds represented the earliest days of Fairport, then it was on to the Richard and Linda catalogue for Down Where the Drunkards Roll, with Dave Pegg providing mandolin and a touching vocal.

The next guest up was Bob Mould and this was where the evening, which had already been fantastic, really started to take off for me. He and Richard swapped ferocious solos on Turning of the Tide before taking on the Sugar song If I can’t Change Your Mind (I confess that I wouldn’t have known the name of this one, and some others, without that handy set-list). I could listen to Richard play with that sort of attack all night, though I would probably be deaf by the end of it.

Just as well then that things took a folksier turn next, with the lovely Kate Rusby whose quavering voice did full justice to Withered and Died and her own As the Lights Go Out. Marc Ellington made his jovial presence felt with a singalong Bonnie Lass O’Fyvie, and then it was the turn of the Carthy clan.

Martin and Richard were superb on Fare Thee Well, Marry Waterson was splendid on Fine Horseman, but then Eliza, oh my God, Eliza. Who could have guessed that one of the absolute highlights on a night packed with them would be when Richard wasn’t even on stage? The RAH is a spare venue, with no room for backdrops or more than fairly simple lighting. There is no hiding place for anyone whose performance alone isn’t enough to hold the venue. Eliza sang The Great Valerio a capella, heavy on the Yorkshire accent and emotion, and must have crushed every heart in the room. The Great Valerio is an allegorical song about a tightrope walker, but unlike Valerio Eliza didn’t even have a safety net. An astonishing performance.

The first set came to a close with Richard and more Waterson Carthy’s back on stage for a swinging Hug You Like a Mountain which turned the cavernous venue into a cosy revival meeting, sending everyone into the interval with a warm glow and at least a dozen songs in each of their hearts.

Come the second half and out came Richard and Danny Thompson for an audience pleasing Beeswing, before the evening’s sole instrumental – Madame Bonaparte played with master squeeze-boxer Alastair Anderson. From here on in much of the second half was about family. Son Teddy came out for Persuasion, never my favourite Thompson song but I enjoyed this rendition as much as I have ever enjoyed any.

Then it was back to the 90s for the beautifully atmospheric Ghost in the Wind, with Danny and Christine Collister, and Sweetheart on the Barricade (from the relatively obscure Industry album). Danny’s double bass skills brilliantly displayed in the former. Next, Olivia Chaney sang Sandy’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes? And stayed on stage for her own, solo House on the Hill. I have to admit my attention wandered here. While Eliza filled the Hall solo in the first half this performance and song weren’t really up to it. When Richard stayed off-stage for Zak and Maddie Prior to run through Sheath and Knife, I was starting to think he was being a bit too generous with his stage time. Even when he re-appeared to join Zak and Maddie on Grey Funnel Line his playing was muted.

Thankfully things picked up when he was next joined by The Rails (daughter Kami and her husband Pretender James Walbourne). A bouncing Keep Your Distance, with Richard and James swapping solos, put the pep back into the night before, joy of joys, Teddy brought out mother Linda to join him, his sibling Kami, Kami’s husband, Richard’s son Jack on bass and grandson Zak on guitar, for an attacking That’s Enough. I can’t claim that I could distinguish Linda’s vocals in the mix (she has famously had trouble singing on stage since the time she and Richard got divorced) but I can say I have seen Linda Thompson sing, and that is something I have wanted to say for decades.

Judith Owen was the next guest for Cry Me a River (the Julie London one, not the Justin Timberlake one), which fans will know she sang on Richard’s Thousand Years of Popular Music project. If Judith was there it was a fair bet that her husband couldn’t be far behind, albeit in the guise of ‘the former bassist of the band formerly know as Spinal Tap – Derek Smalls!’ Mister Smalls treated us to She Puts the Bitch in Obituary, helped out by a stinging Thommo guitar solo, blood red stage lights and a sea of devil-horn hands in the crowd.

We were on the final lap now, and here comes Loudon Wainwright III to reconvene the 80s partnership of Loud and Rich. The Swimming Song was Loudon’s contribution, followed by a slightly rickety I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight.

There was no official ranking of the guest performers, but a buzz went round the hall when Jack announced the final guest of the night as everyone know it would a man ‘from a little band called Pink Floyd’, and out stepped David Gilmour. I love David’s playing almost as much as I love Richard’s and was fascinated to hear how the would play together. Their first song was Dimming of the Day, which David has already played in his own shows. I was surprised to see both he and Richard played it electric (Zak was on acoustic). Is it possible to listen too hard to try to make out a sound? Then there was a pause, and David stepped up to the mic and began to sing ‘When that fat old sun ..’ and it was bloody marvellous, leading to him and Richard swapping solos to bring the evening to a huge emotional climax.

Or almost. Of course there had to be a Cropredy style everyone-on-stage rendition of Meet on the Ledge, a song which Richard wrote in his teens at a time when we were all more than half a century away from the ledge than we are now. As tears were dried the house lights rose the thousands lucky enough to have been there stumbled out into the rainy Kensington night, buzzing, stunned, lifted by the power of the music this extraordinary man has been making for his 70 years.

And he didn’t even play Vincent Black Lightning 1952.

The audience:

Generally grey hair, and lots of fathers and sons as well as couples. A far higher proportion on intellectual looking spectacles than at most gigs.

It made me think..

I was so lucky to be there. That’s a night that will never happen again, and who knows if the sort of performers and writers who can put together a catalogue of music over decades will exist in the future either?

11

Comments

  4. Really enjoyed the gig. Thought this exchange with Thompson and Hugh Cornwall between songs was worthy of mention.
    After playing the school band staple, Tobacco Road
    RT- “ so Hugh, i’ve lost touch with you since school. How are things? Are you a bank Manager or something now”
    Hugh Cornwall – “You know how it is, I joined a band, I left a band”
    RT – “ I know that feeling”
    Bass player sets off Peaches….

  5. Gatz, a couple of things I’d add of top of my head
    – Eliza Carthy’s performance of The Great Valerio was, indeed, so good that I found my head turning upward as if Valerio himself was up there walking the line
    -Young Zac Hobbs, grandson of the family, is brilliant in his own right. On mandolin, acoustic and electric last night. I look forward to his recordings.
    – sad that main lieutenant Simon Nicol was sidelined by Thomas Cook. But great he arrived in time to play part in the Meet On The Ledge encore

    • I didn’t notice Simon arrive! Zak is great – it’s the third time I’ve seen him this year, though the other two gigs were considerably smaller.

      I’m not a musician, but if you are you might want to know that Zak, whom Richard has acknowledged as the most accurate copier of his style, can be sponsored on Patreon where he gives lessons on playing Richard Thompson songs – https://www.patreon.com/posts/future-lesson-28992980

      • I saw some production seats released yesterday, but there were very few vacant seats I could spot near me in the upper levels. I did also see a man outside engaged in a heated phone conversation, ‘Well did you think to go to the box office to pick them up? … It’s the big glass bit on the front of the building!!’ Frosty vibes there no doubt.

                • I think he still lives in Nashville, but tours here most years, small gigs in folk clubs and the like. He recently revived the “& Christine Collister” songbook, albeit with a different singer, but I haven’t seen them play. Any Trouble even used to play a yearly gig in Birmingham, but didn’t last year.
                  I really loved Any Trouble, becoming also an early convert to Gregson/Collister, buying their ‘Home and Away’ debut on tape, ahead of the vinyl release. Also loving RT, I remember going to see him at the Odeon in Brum, astonished and delighted that Clive and Christine were his opening act. And then, blow me down with a monkey, then they were in the band for the main slot. Fabulous. Probably about 1981.
                  His solo gigs are excellent, just he and his acoustic guitar, he being no slouch on that either. Uncertain what sort of living he makes, as there can little call for ageing, bald guitar whiz singer-songwriters.

                    • I stand corrected. I thought it before I had kids, but maybe not. Just looked it up, 26/11/86, so must have had babysitters for a rare night out. It was great, anyhow, with Steve Gibbons in the gents commenting on it not being his usual thing.

                  • More admiration and respect for Mr. Gregson over this way. I think I may be one of the few people who has everything from the Any Trouble discography (including two different coloured vinyl versions of the second LP and the single album version of Wrong End of the Race) and they were certainly good form at their London show a couple of years ago, with one C. Gregson as solo support act. It’s probably this sort of commercial nous that has kept his head above water during trying times for the independent singer-songwriter.

          • I remember Gregson writing a pretty sneering review for Mojo of the Mirror Blue album. Maybe that’s why he wasnt invited onstage.
            Anyway a great review of the gig and I wish I had the effort to trek down to London for this one. Especially to see Loudon up there with him.

            • Yes, they fell out after that. I think Thommo was being a bit harsh, as Clive said that he would take the worst RT over the best REM (and someone else, can’t remember), but apparently it did cause a rift.

              • There was even a rumour that Put it There Pal was about Gregson, which would have been an extremely harsh reaction. Thompson always denies autobiographical motives for his songs though. He even denied that Geordie (about a Geordie musician who acts and sings in a faux Jamaican accent) was about Sting.

                  • Clive has been living in the UK for a couple of years. I did a radio interview with him over a year ago and he had been back for a while then. Strange how he never made it back to either RT or Christine. I still love his stuff.

    • DM was there but mainly added percussion to Mike Jerome’s drumming (it was Mike’s kit). DM played drums on the early Fairport songs. The ‘house band’ was the current trio, but at various times Ashley Hutchings, Peggy and Jack Thompson played electric bass as well as Taras, and of course Danny Thompson played double bass on some.

      When I arrived I saw a double bass lying on stage and felt sure Danny would be there, but Jack missed his intro. He made up for it later by back-announcing Danny as a man who had been a huge influence on him as a bass player.

  9. What a thoroughly enjoyable review. The concert was doubtless even more enjoyable but I am very grateful to you, Gatz for sharing your thoughts and impressions from this monumental event.

  10. Just to add my thruppence.

    Thanks @Gatz

    Highlights were Marry Waterson singing her mother’s Fine Horseman, which Richard had played on the original on the Bright Phoebus album. My friend turned to me and said that that was worth the price of the admission and then Eliza sang The Great Valerio. The hall was silent for that. Amazing.

    But then the whole concert was a highlight, it was good to see Linda onstage after all these years. (as an aside did anyone attend the Witchseason Fairport concert at the Barbican in 2009? I’m sure Linda was onstage at the end for that)

    To say what I would have liked to have seen sounds a bit churlish I would have loved a bit of French Frith Kaiser and Thompson, and unfortunately John Kirkpatrick was playing with Home Service at Nettlebed Folk Festival so there were no Morris tunes.

    I know there are lots of videos and the concert is available on Dime a Dozen, but I think I’d rather remember in my head a truly wonderful night.

    Also luckily for us we bumped into someone who couldn’t attend the after show party and kindly passed on his tickets to us. A great end to a great evening.

      • “we bumped into someone who couldn’t attend the after show party”. Unbelievable. Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe that, Hubert. I know you are a major fan, so that ticket reached absolutely the right hands.

      • No gossip, I suppose I could manufacture some though.
        It’s not often you are in a room with two Pointless pointless answers.
        Loudon and Harry Shearer.

        The person who gave us the tickets was someone we’d met before at a talk.

    • I don’t think he and John Kirkpatrick see eye to eye anymore, a distinct trend emerging here. I remember when he was putting the vintage 90s RT band together for Cropredy 2 or 3 years ago, I queried whether Kirkpatrick would be playing, on the Walk Awhile message board, and he himself replied saying, were he asked, he could be available. Later stories suggested he was unavailable. Despite being the other prime signature sound of that iteration. Pity. I don’t know which RT song is rumoured to be about him. but it is possible he sat on some Jimmy Shand shellacs, I suppose.

    • I’ve listened to two tracks so far, from one of the recordings on Dime, and I think it’s fair to say that it was an event where it’s plain to see why it was greatly enjoyed by those present, but doesn’t really stack up as a great live album – which is fair enough. I think you had to be there to see past the frequently evident – and maybe understandable – lack of rehearsal! How much was a ticket? Glad to have a copy anyway; I’ll sit down and bung on the ‘phones for a proper immersion one of these days.

      • Tickets were pretty ‘reasonable’ for RAH shows these days. I had seats in the stalls right next to the stage, and they cost £90. Considering I paid £180 for a less advantageous position for Eric Clapton earlier this year, and David Gilmour stalls seats were about £140 a couple of years ago, I consider Monday night to have been great value.

        I also had the remarkable fortune to have been put next to a bunch of empty seats, which I thought was odd seeing how they were in a prime position…until Kami, Teddy and James W came and sat next to me for most of the first half, and then brought Linda back to the same place to watch David Gilmour…

        Thanks for all the great reviews so far. I echo them: I loved it. It was wonderful to see Danny with him again after all these years (was the last time he played with RT at his own birthday gig at the Half Moon in Putney?), and the Bob Mould contributions were electrifying. Zak Hobbs also did a brilliant job providing discreet rhythm guitar for most of the acts.

      • Speaking to one performer at 12:00 midnight, they hadn’t got booked into their hotel room and were hoping it hadn’t been let to someone else. So they had obviously only come down that day.
        I heard that D Gilmour had been rehearsing for four days. Zak Hobbs did an excellent job standing in for S Nicol who was supposed to supply the rhythm parts.

      • I went for the cheapest option which was a standing place on the highest level for £35 plus fees. Some distance from the stage, but you could stand wherever you liked around the auditorium (places furthest from the stage looking straight down the centre seemed to be most popular), and it had the advantage that you could move around during what was a long show.

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