Venue:
The Harlequin, Redhill
Date: 19/11/2017
Just occasionally I like to go out on a bit of a limb and to see someone whose output I should know but don’t. An artiste whose music doesn’t bother my collection. This is what brought me to see Steeleye Span – I mean I’d always been aware of them but, apart from the two hit singles, had never bought anything by them.
The gig didn’t disappoint – the band took to the stage and Maddy Prior announced that they were going to play the whole of their first album “Hark the village wait” in the first half of the show and then a selection of other songs in the second half. It became immediately apparent that either Maddy Prior has a bit of a cold or that her voice is on the way out as she appeared to be straining a little to get to the high notes a la Ian Anderson. However she has the advantage over Mr Anderson in that she has other vocalists who can fill in when her voice is straining a bit which does mask any shortcomings.
The musicianship in the band is astonishing – seven individuals who would grace other bands (and have in a lot of cases) and I was particularly drawn to Benji Kirkpatrick and Julian Littman who both played a variety of instruments with ease.
After the interval we were treated to another hour or so of songs from Steeleye’s long history – a couple off the new album ( “Cruel Brother” and “The Gardener”) and “Dark Morris’ off of the “Wintersmith” album along with hosts more songs featuring various brigands, syphilitic soldiers and murderers. At the end they came back in and did “All around my hat” as an encore – well they would wouldn’t they !
The audience:
Real ale T shirt wearing men “of a certain age” made up a lot of the audience – the sort you’d expect to see at Cropredy (so no surprises there)
It made me think..
I went mainly because we used to have a lot of bands in Redhill – I remember seeing Nils Lofgren there many years ago (playing to a two thirds empty theatre), we had John Mayall, Procol Harum, Fairport Convention, lots of ageing bluesmen but now the theatre seem to be content to put on tribute bands and the like rather than originals and if you don’t go to these things they won’t put original bands on again (because there’s no call for it). I thoroughly enjoyed my evening and just hope that we see more proper bands here in the coming months.
Dodgy Bastards is a bit of a corking album, actually. I like it much better than Please To See The King, which I won in a raffle at the 1972 Technical College Xmas Party. I was always a Fairports and Trees man myself, but Dodgy Bastards is a walloping good listen.
I live in Redhill and have had “All Around my Hat” as an earworm all weekend, strangely enough as I was unaware Steeleye Span were playing. It’s a shame more bands don’t come here really. It is close to London (and Brighton for that matter) so maybe that makes it less of a draw, but surely there’s still a bit of a market.
One exception is/are Chas ‘n’ Dave who play most tours here – but then I guess that’s a regional thing.
They are in Exeter on Wednesday – giving them a miss this time as retirement forces a certain pulling in of the horns gigwise and I have seen them a couple of times recently. Dragged along the first time by Mrs. T and they are indeed terrific live. Maddy’s voice isn’t quite what it was maybe, but a great night is pretty much guaranteed!
I’ve got that bloody earworm now….
That Redhill show is up on Dimeadozen:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=606546
Hark The Village Wait is the best of the Carthy / Hutchings LPs by a long way I think. I agree with Saucy that Please To See The King is not so good.
Other great Steeleye albums IMO are Below The Salt, Parcel O Rogues, Horkstow Grange and Dodgy Bastards. Seeing them next month. Thanks for the review.
Wrongity, PTStK is the topper most of their stuff. HtVW is great enough, but is still too much a nod back to the drums based work of Hutchings “old band”, even if only via guests Mattacks and Conway. And much as I love the subsequent Gay and Terry woods albums, they were too commercial for confining to pure trad arr. , needing the harsh and austere bleakness of PTStK to show through after they left. TMM (oMRBRA) was a lesser continuation. Of course then it went all crap as Hutchings and Carthy left, and I couldn’t ever again admit to liking them, except for Gaudete, until , well, never, really, even if I do.
The new band sound so different that I am tempted a bit.
I have the first two albums but, push comes to shove, I never really cared for Steeleye Span – definitely not post-Carthy, though I did see the Gay Woods reunion version (was that around Horkstow Grange?). My problem is Maddy’s voice and the rump-di-dump-ti-diddly-dump-ti stuff they did after Carthy left. Ghastly.
However, I do think they created one masterpiece – recording, arrangement, sound – in ‘When I Was On Horseback’, which I’ve just discovered was on the third and last Carthy album (which I never heard). I have it on a 70s vinyl compilation. It’s a compelling song, and they created the perfect treatment for it with just the right amount of electricity. Martin Simpson recorded a similarly compelling solo guitar version in the 90s. I wish he would record more instrumental albums.