Hibernation escape..
I just looked and it’s been well over a year since my last post on here – that’s not entirely down to lockdown, of course, I’d slowed down on the blogging front anyway. Gosh, a lot has changed in the world in that time hasn’t it? Since excitedly posting about B-Sydes, there’s been some kind of global pandemic which basically put paid to live music, in case you hadn’t noticed, so it was really exciting a few weeks ago when Joel set about organising a Covid-safe garden gig as part of his college assessment and asked me to pop along.
The weather threatened to (literally) put a dampener on things, but we are hardy souls and came armed with waterproofs and brollies. The stage was set – some cunningly placed pallets under a gazebo housing the PA and the lighting, as we arrived some last minute sound-checking was underway, and video cameras set up with fellow students diligently getting themselves organised to take recordings of the performances that would follow. Background music was piped through the PA whilst we awaited the acts to begin.
First up on stage was Abi Greenwood – you can tell I’ve not been in the habit of writing up events as I will be terrible in not recollecting any song titles (although I did purloin Joel’s set list so will get his!), I didn’t take many photos either. Joel cued up a backing track and how can I describe Abi? She has a wonderfully understated but beautifully tonal voice, then builds up to more empassioned singing – it’s very effective. The performed a couple of songs to get us warmed up and it went down very well indeed. We’d set up an arrangement of umbrellas with our camping chairs underneath to get a good vantage point – the rain didn’t actually last that long!
After a break with more background music Kirsty Wilkes took the stage and performed two pieces along to a backing track on her flute. It sounded great, I didn’t recognise the songs (but then I probably wouldn’t!), but it was melodic and lifting. As I said to her and Joel after the music was finished, surely there’s an opportunity there for them to work on some performances together, I could imagine some nice flute arrangements going brilliantly with his guitar and singing!
Warren Ireland was next – he needs no introduction for regular readers (if there’s any left!) of these pages. He’s a mesmerising performer at the best of times, and you could tell he’d been champing at the bit to be performing again. In acoustic guise with no looping he put on a fabulous 40ish minutes – mixing up covers from the likes of Nick Parker, Phat Bollard and Samantics with his own songs. It was so good to see and hear him perform again – I’m pleased that in this enforced break from live music he was my first familiar act to have seen to break my musical fast. He’s such a talented bugger.
After a brief interlude for the Fun Draw, we’d all been given raffle tickets on entry – I didn’t win but that’s okay, it was time for the headline act. Joel Fox. I’ve been lucky enough to see Joel progress as a performer over the last couple of years or so. Early performances were good, but unconfident sometimes (which is perfectly understandable!). Clearly he’s been putting lots of practice in over lockdown but it must be nerve-wracking to get up in front of a crowd – even if it’s a modest socially distanced one comprising of friends – after all this time. If it was, you couldn’t tell.
He’s started to develop that most difficult element of stage-craft, the between song banter, to great effect. Sometimes self-depreciating, and usually funny he cast the image of someone comfortable being up there which wasn’t always so easy to project when he was younger. His demeanour and confidence is palpable now, and justified by great work with his guitar and vocal delivery. It made me feel quite proud by proxy!
Opening the set with a Gaz Brookfield song was always likely to go down well with me – he picked Pen to Paper and did a great job of it. Technically it only has three chords, but I noticed he does all those mystifying randomly adding an extra note somewhere to add a bit of texture and interest. A couple of originals were up next, If We’re Going Down and then Losing Streak – they’re cracking compositions, pleasing chord progressions and rhythms with heartfelt lyrics. You can definitely see the influence of some of our festival staples in Joel’s writing but he puts his own stamp on them too.
Another festival favourite got another cover – Nick Parker’s The Conjuror was up next, and done beautifully. It was a request from Joel’s mum Angela and I’m glad she did! Then a run of three original songs, Fighting Fire with Folk, Free (I think this was the one he’d only written recently as was worrying about playing without making a mistake, I didn’t detect any – of course, any seasoned performer will tell you they aren’t mistakes, just reinterpretations!) and Why Run. I really enjoyed them all, hopefully he gets the opportunity to do some recording soon. There’s definitely material enough for an EP on evidence tonight.
Nick Parker got another appearance-by-proxy with a rousing cover of Never Been to Dublin – one I’ve played along on cajon before, it has a tricky switch from 4:4 time to 3:4 time which Joel navigated without issue (I suppose there is a clue in the lyrics as it arrives, to be fair, but even so!), giving us time for an encore which was roundly and genuinely called for by the crowd, and that was original You and Me. A splendid set – finished off with Joel stepping off the stage to perform a Gaz Brookfieldesque jump.
On the Messenger thread set up to organise the evening next door neighbour Nicky asked if he was taking any further requests – I offered to ask the question, when I did indeed ask if he was up for playing some Spice Girls it prompted the guitar to be unplugged. I think we had to take that as a no! A great evening’s entertainment though – not just because we’ve been starved of it for about 15 months either. It was so good to enjoy the performances and the company of friends I’ve not seen in far too long.
A triumphant evening, and with the UK tentatively stepping closer toward restrictions being further lifted there’s hope for more and more opportunities for us to enjoy more live events and – more crucially – the chance for musicians to start getting out there and doing their thing and earning a living doing what they love. I can’t wait! Big thanks to Joel, Warren, Kirsty and Ali for confirming what I already suspected that I’ve been missing the joy of live music really rather a lot!