Sarah McQuaid, who never fails to deliver a fine performance

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 chattiness. I could have mentioned the audience in single figures, or the variously dilapidated electric guitars hanging from the walls around the scarlet carpeted and plushly chaired room, or the thought that there seemed to be more monitors on the bijou stage than punters facing the stage. I could have commented on the friendly and helpful pub staff, and the ridiculously fairly priced beer, or the fact that my wife could guzzle hot builder’s tea from a huge mug at two quid a go.

But this would all have been atmosphere and frills, and would have said little directly about the scintillating performance the few of us there were privileged to experience last night from Sarah.

A live performance from Sarah McQuaid is already a valuable thing, and a performance of hers in a small venue makes the experience all the finer. The closeness offers an even deeper well of engagement and the mysterious magic of immersion that her songs offer. You are drawn in by her charming introductions, then her deft and delightfully precise playing, soaringly effortless voice and the engaging lyrics she writes paint pictures and evoke memories and images of one’s own until, like the ephemeral things that all beautiful songs are, they finish and you are returned to the present, once again back in the room with your fellow listeners.

I don’t know how they do it, these peripatetic troubadours. I don’t know why their appearances are not always packed with refugees from the idiot box and the rolling, 24-hour Godawfulness that spills from its screen all day. I only know that whenever they swing past I will always be there to listen, rapt and enraptured and able to escape for a while into a space of calm, beauty and thoughtfulness that wipes away all of the cares of the world and replaces them with a balm of human kindness. Thank you and bravo.

The audience:

Too few to mention, but all fascinated and bewitched by a great performance. They hit the merch table with enthusiasm, as did I.

It made me think..

This is the very essence of what live music means to me. It lifts my spirit and puts a spring in my otherwise tired step, especially at this time of the year, a few weeks before the solstice bells. I marvelled, too, that Sarah’s brilliant sound guy Martin, so sensitive to her voice and music, irrespective of venue foibles, is a wonder.

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