Concert Review: Bartees Strange (St. Pancras Old Church, 25/02/2026)

The only London show for a while by Bartees Strange prompted my first visit over to St. Pancras Old Church last week. What a nice venue it is: full of spirits, one of the oldest Christian worship sites in England (possibly) provides an atmospheric setting for intimate gigs. 

That's exactly what Strange delivered. Strong opening support came from another singer-songwriter/guitarist mariedominique whose supple, soulful set included the beautiful original compositions "Fire and Ice" and a haunting cover of Moses Sumney's "Doomed" - and whose 29th birthday it was, resulting in an impromptu serenade from the crowd ("I didn't know I needed that!").

‎Strange himself had just finished a European tour supporting Biffy Clyro; he seemed at the kind of total ease and command that come with months of solo performance in front of diverse audiences. "I like playing with a band, but I kind of remembered lately that playing by myself is really what I do," he told us. "It feels like we could be doing a Q&A in here."

‎Ipswich-born and mostly Oklahoma-raised, place is important in many of Strange's songs. He's an artist of many parts, his music combining folk and funk, country, blues and indie rock into a totally distinctive, seductive blend. Distilled to acoustic guitar and voice, the songs all felt full, Strange roving around the tunes with wonderful spontaneity and with a delivery that veered from gentle croon to full-throated rasp. 

‎The set ranged over tracks from Strange's  albums and EPs, up to last year's brilliant double of Horror (2025) and Shy Bairns Get Nowt (2025). Standout songs like "Sober," "17," "Lie 95," "Baltimore," "Ain't Nobody Making Me High" and "Doomsday Buttercup" ("This is straight-up about having sex") gained in grit and grace. Strange also felt comfortable enough to debut two still-in-development pieces, "Gillette Blade 7" and "Running Back," the latter particularly beautiful.

‎"Heavy Heart," written after the deaths of his grandparents, was a poignant and healing closer. "What's a cure for heartbreak?" asked a voice from the pews. Strange paused for a moment before answering: "Making something new."

Concert Review: Barb Jungr - Singing into My Seventies (Crazy Coqs, May 2024)

Barb Jungr
(Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

It's not everyone who'd necessarily opt to celebrate their 70th birthday by performing a trio of shows - each one made up of completely different, challenging musical material drawing on a repertoire of about 40 years.

But if there's one thing we know about Barb Jungr by now it's that she doesn't take expected routes. So that's exactly how Jungr spent her 70th - with a three night residency at one of her favourite venues, Soho's Crazy Coqs, accompanied at each show by a different long-time collaborator on piano.  

The first show on 9th May (Jungr's birthday night itself) found Jenny Carr joining to perform a set titled Dark Love: Elvis, Chanson & More. The 10th May show presented Jungr alongside Simon Wallace with a Dylan-centred programme, while the final night saw John McDaniel re-teaming with Jungr on a set revisiting their beautiful collections of work by The Beatles and Sting.

I was only able to make it to the 9th May performance, but have seen Jungr in concert many times since 2015 and it's always a unique, profound and exhilarating experience. She is, without a doubt, one of the greatest of contemporary singers: her supple voice, always exceptionally expressive but undiminished and deepened with the years, is able to dig into a dazzling range of material to find new and surprising qualities. And she's no slouch as a songwriter herself, either. 

But live she's even more than that: a great mover (in the sense of giving a vivid physical life to each song), and a spontaneous, hilarious and often subversive story-teller. At a Jungr show, you never quite know where the between-song chat will go: "I was obsessed with the Gothic nature of swamps," was one of the gems she shared this time around. But what might initially seem to be a non-sequitur always ends up adding to the texture of the song she's about to perform. Movement, gestures, delivery, chat - for Jungr, it's always about serving the story of the song in the most expressive way. 

Barb Jungr
(Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

With only one Jacques Brel piece, "The Tender Hearts," featured, the 9th May show didn't exactly adhere to its title - a case of 'its my birthday and I'll shake up the set-list if I want to', perhaps. But it was a rich and glorious evening nonetheless. Jungr opened with a punchy "Last Train to Clarksville," placing the song in a Vietnam context that I for one had never been aware of. As the evening progressed, connections between the  songs emerged, whether by theme - loss and separation were big - or by specific imagery: trains pulling out of stations, walking, rain. "It does get cheerful in a bit," she deadpanned at one point. 

With Carr's brilliant piano-playing as a by turns delicate and dramatic accompaniment, highlights included a pair of Elvis songs, drawn from Jungr's often wonderfully weird and spooky 2005 Love Me Tender album, a deeply moving "In the Ghetto" and "Kentucky Rain." With Jungr's delivery morphing from gossipy confidence to a preacher's declamation, the rendition of  Dylan's "The Man in the Long Black Coat" was staggering. And so, in an entirely different way, was "Au Depart," an extraordinary piece of writing by Robb Johnson that conjures a world of history, absence, loss, leave-taking and starting over through its economical images. With Johnson himself in the audience, Jungr performed the song with a captivating stillness that made each word pierce the listener. 

Jungr placed "Au Depart" in the context of the post-war refugee experience of her Czech father. This was one example of the resonant way she wove personal stories through some of the songs, from teenage Stockport memories to a traumatic visit to the eye hospital with her beloved mother (who sadly passed away just before Christmas last year) to her joy at getting a dog (Bambi, from Hungary). The latter relationship was celebrated via a rendition of Cat Stevens' "I Love My Dog," a warm performance of the song and a wry deconstruction of it at the same time. 

Indeed, when the evening did "get cheerful" it was with that infectious, soul-enhancing energy that's one of Jungr's essential qualities as an artist. She expresses a sheer joy in communicating with an audience that's often sadly absent from performers half her age.  A glorious take on Jeff Barry's "Walking in the Sun" and a singalong "Forever Young" were irresistible.  Carr led the crowd in a chorus of "Happy Birthday" before Jungr's rollicking version of "Walking in Memphis" sent us out of the club on an exultant high. 

From Ella to Emmylou, June Tabor to Joan Baez, Jungr joins the many female artists who've continued to perform dynamically in their later years, blowing apart pervasive ageist and sexist assumptions in the process. "I couldn't think of anything I'd rather be doing than singing tonight," Jungr said. A more vibrant and vital artist than ever - listen to last year's blistering My Marquee album for recorded proof - may she continue to do so for many more years to come. 

Concert Review: The Light Princess in Concert (Cadogan Hall, 1 July 2018)

There are shows that you enjoy, and then there are shows that change you. An example of the latter, for me, was Samuel Adamson and Tori Amos's musical The Light Princess, which was a case of love at first sight and first hearing when I encountered it at the NT in September 2013. That love for Marianne Elliott's production only deepened across the 10 visits I made to the show - I wrote a little about why in a piece here - and it was with a heavy heart that I and many others who had connected deeply with The Light Princess bid farewell to it at the final performance in February 2014. A heavy heart - and also the sense that the musical hadn't received anything like its due from certain mainstream critics ("Saint" Lyn Gardner among them), who'd proved themselves inadequate to the task of engaging with the show's intricate, densely patterned, classically-inflected score and the highly original ways that it serves character and narrative. 

The release of the cast recording in October 2015 was a delight; still, the hope of seeing the show revived has remained. Organised by Club 11 London and Alex Parker Theatre Company, and directed by Paul Foster (Staff Director on the original production), Sunday's concert performance at Cadogan Hall went some way to fulfilling that desire. This most physical - even balletic - of musicals, with its floating heroine, requires a bold approach to movement (such as it received at the NT thanks to Steven Hoggett's startling, surreal choreography) to fully soar. But Foster's simple and unfussy concert staging - with the terrific ensemble occupying the back of the stage, the musicians, conducted by Parker, in the centre, and the leads at the front - succeeded in placing the focus firmly on the music, which sounded rich and glorious - with a chamber intensity - throughout. With so much character and narrative detail packed into the score, the show's themes of generational conflict, patriarchal tyranny and the necessity of finding your own path emerged clearly, as did the parallel arcs of its hero and heroine: she towards gravity, he towards levity, he learning the value of rebelliousness, she becoming responsible on her own terms. 

Returning to the role that she so powerfully originated, Rosalie Craig sang with all the passion, wit and sensuality of her NT performance, delivering standouts such as the yearning "My Fairy Story," the jubilant " Better Than Good," and the wrenching "No H2O" with deep feeling. Taking on the role of the Solemn Prince Digby, husband Hadley Fraser proved an unsurprisingly great sparring partner, bringing swagger to "Sealand Supremacy" and romantic spirit and sweetness to the intoxicating love duet "Althea," as well as thrillingly partnering Louis Maskell's Llewellyn on "Bitter Fate."

Gabrielle Brooks offered a winning combination of tenderness and defiance as Piper, doing well on the very complex duet pieces "Queen Material" and "The Whistleblower," and stepping forward for Craig to touch her tears on "No H2O." Trevor Dion Nicholas - the Genie of the West End's Aladdin - proved himself every inch King material with a galvanising performance as Darius that fully conveyed both the character's arrogant authority and his wounded core. As the Sergeant-at-Arms, the stylish Anna-Jane Casey took on the hilarious "Scandal" with relish; returning to her role as Falconer, Laura Pitt-Pulford maximised her "Sealand Supremacy" cameo (aka the show's "Bonnie Tyler moment"); and an on-fire David Langham tripled up spectacularly as Messers Flowers, Crabbe and Grey in the great "suitors" sequence. 

Some judicious edits set the scene and condensed the narrative so that only the omission of Darius's aria of repentance "My Little Girl's Smile" felt like a great loss. And, in a lovely surprise, the concert also restored to the score several sequences that were cut in NT previews. The addition of "Not a Fairy-tale" and Darius's death song brought the "Althea Selma Isadora Darcy" theme to completion beautifully, while tweaks to individual lines kept things fresh and interesting throughout. ("I'd rather eat my spleen" declared Althea on her great face-off with the King at the start of "Queen Material".)

With the swell and soar of the voices on the majestic finale "Coronation" "ringing out" across the hall and inspiring a standing ovation, the love for this most loving of musicals was moving to witness. What emerged afresh was the huge ambition, originality and emotional range of the show, conveyed through music that's as thrillingly diverse as it is wonderfully cohesive. The show needs - and deserves - another full production soon. Still, this heartwarming evening proved conclusively that there's more than one way of feeling Light. 

See concert photos here: https://www.club11.london/light-princess-photos/ 

Concert Review: Joan Baez, Fare Thee Well Tour, Royal Albert Hall, London (28th May 2018)

Joan Baez at the Royal Albert Hall (Photo credit: Martin Harris)

The last time Joan Baez took to the stage of the Royal Albert Hall was 10 years ago, during a tour celebrating the fifth decade of her storied career. Baez’s return to the venue on Monday night also marked a significant, though rather more bittersweet, occasion: the London stop on what she’s announced will be her final world tour, one which will continue in Europe throughout the summer  and then head to the US in the Autumn. The tour accompanies the release of Baez’s fine new studio album, Whistle Down the Wind [review], a modest, beguilingly humble work that lightly touches some of the abiding concerns of her career, one in which activism and artistry have, of course, always been intimately interconnected. Taking its cue from the album, the concert itself also avoided any sense of grandstanding or any big, forced statements. Instead, Baez placed the focus firmly on the music, letting the songs – old or new, political or deeply personal – speak for themselves. 

Baez is an artist who invariably creates an exceptionally warm and inclusive atmosphere for her audience, and she did so here from the moment she arrived on stage, apologising for her “lateness” (about five minutes or so!) with the confession “I forgot my lipstick.” She opened the show solo, performing  Phil Ochs’ "There But for Fortune”, Steve Earle’s “God is God” and Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” as a trio that harked back to the stark power of her first performances - a girl, a guitar, a commanding voice singing potent words - before being joined by what she jokingly referred to as her “big band,” an outfit comprising only her son, percussionist Gabriel Harris, and multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell. The all-acoustic set-up brought the Whistle Down the Wind songs to vivid life, with a spellbinding take on Josh Ritter’s neo-folk ballad “Silver Blade” and a stately, deeply moving performance of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s ode to memory and mindfulness, “The Things That We Are Made Of," among the stand-outs.   

Fresh, supple textures were also added to standards such as a newly-relevant “Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” a stunning, dramatic “The House of the Rising Sun” and an intense “Seven Curses,” Baez’s lower, weathered tones, with occasional rationed jumps to her higher register, finding new depths in the familiar material. Perhaps the only disappointment was “Silver Dagger,” drained of some its tension here in a more meandering arrangement that showcased Powell’s fiddle-playing. On the other hand, the contributions of the young singer Grace Sturmberg, who added ghostly harmonies to a haunting “Diamonds and Rust” and youthful zest to a rollicking “Darlin' Cory," were terrific.

Throughout, Baez seemed touchingly awed at the audience response, and her affection for the “beautiful, gorgeous” venue was palpable, especially  as she recalled her first time performing there in the early ‘60s and her inclusion of the English music hall song “Isn’t it Grand, Boys?” in her set. “I got told off for singing ‘bloody’. Well, times have changed.”

Times have changed – are changing – but the greatness of Baez’s shows is that they offer us links to the past without ever feeling like mere nostalgia-fests. Nowhere was that clearer than in a section that began with, yes, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” – which Baez dedicated to the Florida students currently challenging the NRA – before  progressing though Zoe Mulford’s hymnal “The President Sang Amazing Grace” and ending with a rousing “Joe Hill.”

Audience singalongs were encouraged from “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” onwards, and by the time the show reached its climax, which included a joyous, cathartic “Gracias A La Vida,” a tender “Imagine” and a stirring “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” these singalongs could be guaranteed without any prompting. Interestingly, no direct reference was made to the tour’s status as Baez’s last, and the addition of some new UK dates in 2019 suggests – happily – that this farewell tour may in fact turn out to be “a long goodbye”. Perhaps the closest that Baez came to acknowledging the significance of the tour was her repetition of a lyric in the final song that she performed, words from “The Boxer” that resonated as a statement of her shining legacy of activism and endurance: “I am leaving, I am leaving/But the fighter still remains.”   

Set List

There But for Fortune

God is God

Farewell Angelina

Whistle Down the Wind

Silver Blade

It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

The Things That We Are Made Of

Diamonds and Rust

Me and Bobby McGee

Another World

The Times They Are A-Changin’

The President Sang Amazing Grace

Joe Hill

Seven Curses

Silver Dagger

Darlin’ Cory

Gracias a la Vida

Imagine

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

The Boxer

Concert Review: Jim Moray @ Twickfolk (26/02/2012)

“I’m starting as I mean to go on - with death and destruction,” quipped Jim Moray following the opening song in his excellent gig at Twickenham Folk Club last Sunday night. It’s a standard - but always-appreciated - folk joke: diffusing the often dire subject matter of traditional song by wryly drawing attention to it. For folk fans, it’s the dire subject matter that we love, of course. The song in question this time was “Hind Etin,” or Child 43, which Moray had seamlessly combined with bits and pieces of other ballads, and which features among its protagonists a “woodland elf rapist.” (Who said folk music was boring, again?)

Moray made TwickFolk the first stop on his tour in support of his beautiful new album Skulk (his best record so far, I’d say), noting that “They say you play Twickenham twice in a career … Once on the way up and then… Well, let’s just say that I’m pleased to be playing here for a third time.” Once variously patronised, praised and pilloried as the “bad boy” of the British folk scene - a guy whose first album, Sweet England (2003) brought classical, electronic and rock influences to bear on trad. material and whose third, Low Culture (2008) featured a collaboration with rapper Bubbz - Moray has proved himself to be one of the most vital and valuable young artists we have: consistently creative in his work on traditional songs, a keen collaborator (in the past year he’s been involved with the Cecil Sharp Project, contributed to the Nic Jones concert at the Royal Festival Hall and played Orpheus to Anais Mitchell’s Eurydice at the UK Hadestown shows) and a musical multi-tasker who’s equally skilled on guitar, drums, piano, banjo, keyboards, concertina, melodeon - and laptop.

He’s still not adverse to the odd marvellously confounding gesture - slipping a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Big Love” in between the traditional songs on Skulk, for example. But he seems to go deeper and deeper with every new release. Sunday’s solo gig found his music at its most stripped-down - and, perhaps, at its most powerful. Wry and warm between songs, and in supple voice, Moray was equal parts folk troubadour and late-night bar-room crooner as he alternated between acoustic guitar and (a wonderfully battered)  piano in a set that drew on songs from across his five studio albums, alongside some new additions.

Highlights included an ineffably chilling “Long Lankin,” a marvellous 'singalongy' “Peg And Awl,” and a beautiful “Sweet England.”  The big ballads (“Hind Etin,” Lord Douglas”) were especially powerful, but the most emotive moments, for me, were the songs performed on piano, with an intense “If It’s True,” (from Hadestown), a dramatic “Lord Bateman,” a soulful “Poverty Knock,” and a gorgeous “Gilderoy”  outstanding. Moray even offered a couple of songs with happy endings - "of sorts" - notably the spry "The Golden Glove," which concludes with its enterprising "nobleman's daughter" heroine pledging - in memorable folk euphemism -  to be "the mistress of your dairy" and to "milk all your cows." Catch him where you can:  concert dates and details here.

Moray’s gig was preceded by an engaging support set by Maz O’Connor, a young Cumbrian singer who accompanied herself on guitar and shruti and performed North East folk-songs, a Dylan cover, and a lovely original song, tentatively titled “Rose Garden.” The romantic content of the latter piece led O’Connor to mention that her parents first met in Twickenham. The chorus of “Aahs” that followed this announcement prompted an additional piece of information that brought the house down. “Yeah, well. They’ve divorced since.” Happy endings. Of sorts.

Set-list:

Hind Etin
Three Black Feathers
Sweet England
Long Lankin
The Captain’s Apprentice
If It’s True
Lord Bateman
Peg and Awl

Horkstow Grange
Gilderoy
Poverty Knock
Lord Douglas
The Golden Glove
The Flying Cloud
Billy Don’t You Weep For Me
The Wishfulness Waltz

Concert Review: Kate Rusby (Richmond Theatre) (23/10/2011)

“We’ve never played here before; we wondered if anybody would come,” confessed a characteristically self-deprecating Kate Rusby towards the end of her enchanting concert at Richmond Theatre yesterday evening. Well, Rusby need not have worried, for the folk fans of Surrey and its surrounds were out in full force last night and gave the singer and her band - Damien O’Kane (guitar/banjo), Ed Boyd (guitar), Julian Sutton (accordion), Duncan Lyle (double bass) and John Joe Kelly (bodhrán) - a very warm welcome indeed.

Though nursing a slight cough passed on to her by her and O’Kane’s two-year-old daughter, Rusby performed like a trouper and was in excellent voice throughout the night, sounding confident and clear. With no brand new album to promote - her last, the entirely self-penned Make The Light, was released a year ago - Rusby constructed a thoughtful set-list that ranged widely over her catalogue, offering a pleasing mixture of traditional and original material. And although much of her older work was of course arranged for fiddle and whistles, the competence and energy of the players ensured that the absence of these instruments in the current set-up wasn’t felt as too much of a lack.

Following an enjoyable, assured warm-up set by Kelly, Boyd and the wry O’Kane, the gig proper began with a lovely version of “Playing of Ball,” the opening track from 2001’s Little Lights, and was followed by a rollicking take on “The Cobbler’s Daughter.” (“We’ll get our songs involving deaths out of the way early on,” Rusby quipped. “And then you can relax into your Sunday evening.”) The newer self-written songs also sounded especially supple and strong, with the plaintive “Only Hope” outstanding, while “Walk the Road” - the closest that Rusby’s yet come to an anthem - concluded the first half on an especially stirring note.

It’s fair to say that, stylistically, Rusby’s work hasn’t developed much over the years, and, across an album, her music can sometimes seem to lack variety. But in a live context - and interspersed with her disarming, often hilarious banter - her music feels vibrant and fresh, and the songs sometimes gain new depths and resonances as well. The concert’s emotional highlight came towards the end of the second half with an exquisite, moving performance of “Let the Cold Wind Blow,” while other standouts included a spry, cheeky “Game of All Fours” (“If you’re under 16, then this is a song about a card game. If you’re over 16, make of it what you will”), a gorgeously rootsy “Over You Now,” and a great fun set of tunes from the band. The one-song encore of “Underneath the Stars,” which Rusby took solo, was, appropriately, celestial.

Rusby’s apparently artless, girl-next-door persona belies the talent and tenacity of a musician who’s been on the scene for 20 years now and who’s able to captivate an audience by creating an atmosphere of palpable warmth, intimacy and ease. “This theatre’s gorgeous… I think we’d like to live here,” Rusby mused. And judging by the affectionate response that she received, it seems that Richmond’s residents would be happy if she chose to do that very thing. A delightful evening.

Reviewed for The Public Reviews.

Tour dates and venue information here.

Concert Review: June Tabor & Oysterband (Queen Elizabeth Hall, 14/9/2011)

It may have taken them over two decades to get around to recording a follow-up to their 1990 album Freedom and Rain, but June Tabor and Oysterband have intermittently reunited for live shows in the intervening years, "never losing touch" with each other’s music, as Tabor noted in a recent interview. This deep rapport and connection was clearly evident last night in Tabor and the band’s superb show at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, the first in a tour in support of that long-awaited new album, Ragged Kingdom [reviewed below]. The show served as a launch of sorts for the new record, with Oysters front-man John Jones confessing rather sheepishly that this was the first time that they had performed many of these songs for an audience.

No signs of anxiety showed through in the performances, however. For, from the galloping, powerhouse opener “Bonny Bunch of Roses” to the impeccably elegant closing lullaby “Put Out the Lights,” Tabor and the band delivered a thrilling show that was controlled and polished yet wonderfully loose and spontaneous.

The set-list combined tracks from Ragged Kingdom and Freedom and Rain, with a couple of Oysters originals added to the mix. Avoiding Dad-rock stolidity, the band played with vigour and passion throughout, Dil Davies’s sturdy drumming, Ian Telfer’s outstanding, soulful violin-playing, Alan Prosser and Al Scott’s guitar-work and the efforts of the multi-tasking Ray Cooper (cello, mandolin, bass) giving the material an exciting mixture of folk grace and rock grit, and beautifully complementing Tabor’s magnificent vocal performances. Jones’s singing matched Tabor’s in drama and intensity, especially his stunning, keening solo on “Molly Bond,” while, backed by Cooper’s mournful cello and Prosser’s delicate guitar, the pair’s duet on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” proved predictably emotive. Cooper, Prosser and Telfer provided chants and harmony vocals for several songs, including an ambient “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” a reeling “Susie Clelland” and a heart-rending “(When I Was No But) Sweet Sixteen,” their contributions adding deep hymnal textures to the already rich material.

The force of the performances succeeded in rendering the diverse song selections - from broadside ballads to late-’60s psych-rock - cohesive, with epoch-spanning tales of war, loss and Love Gone Wrong presented as a seamless story. The most daring transition was between the Oysters’ thunderous, percussive take on “The Bells of Rhymney” and Tabor and Prosser’s timelessly restrained and haunting rendition of “The Hills of Shiloh,” while other highlights included a deft, jangly “If My Love Loves Me” and an ineffably sultry “Mississippi Summer.” And I doubt that there’s been a cooler spectacle on the QEH stage this year than that of Tabor and the band tearing into Jefferson Airplane’s immortal Alice/LSD classic “White Rabbit” at the encore, which she introduced with a hilarious anecdote about performing the song in San Francisco in the early ’90s.

Indeed, throughout the night the bleakness of much of the songs’ subject matter was off-set by the warmth and affection of the band’s interplay, and by Tabor’s wonderfully wry gallows humour. (A story involving a “Goth baby” definitely deserves another outing.) The result was a richly enjoyable concert that held the audience in thrall from beginning to end. “Every place that I have been/Leaves its message on the skin,” sang Tabor on the closing “Put Out the Lights.” The same might be said of all of the indelible songs sung on this spell-binding evening, by some of Britain’s finest. Don’t miss the chance to catch these guys if they’re performing round your way.

Set-list:

Bonny Bunch of Roses
Fountains Flowing
All Tomorrow’s Parties
Love Will Tear Us Apart
If My Love Loves Me
Molly Bond
That Was My Veil
(When I Was No But) Sweet Sixteen
Susie Clelland

Interval

Judas (Was A Red-Headed Man)
Son David
Mississippi Summer
Bells of Rhymney
The Hills of Shiloh
The Leaves of Life
Where the World Divides
Dark-Eyed Sailor
Seven Curses

Encore:
Dark End of the Street
White Rabbit
Put Out the Lights

Details of tour dates and venues here.

Concert Review: Emmylou Harris (Royal Festival Hall, 1/6/2011)

I first discovered Emmylou Harris’s music over 11 years ago now, and I’ve been listening to her work pretty consistently since then. Harris is, without a doubt, one of the several artists who are in The Pantheon, for me. What’s so special about Harris’s music, to me, is not only the inventiveness and elegance with which it has blurred and blended genres, from rock and bluegrass to gospel and folk, but also the way it’s served as an entry point into the work of so many other artists. I’ve lost count of the number of musicians I’ve discovered because Harris has sung with them or covered their songs. That collaborative ethos seems an integral part of the richness of Harris’s body-of-work and the way it gestures backwards and forwards in the American roots tradition, forging links, making connections. In addition, the solo albums that Harris has released since 2000 have had an unerring tendency to appear at emotional low points in my life, and I’d credit each of those fine records with helping me through stressful times in one way or another.

The opportunity to see Harris live had passed me by up until now, so it was a particular pleasure to finally see her in concert at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday night, with her current band the Red Dirt Boys. The tone for the show was set early, when Harris, resplendent in knee-length black cowgirl dress and cowboy boots, bounded on to the stage and launched into “Six White Cadillacs,” from her wonderful new album Hard Bargain [review here], the song’s deluxe honky-tonk gaining grit and volume in this live incarnation. The song established Harris and her band’s ethos for the night: to have fun and get loud. Still, a rather inadequate sound mix, coupled with Harris’s notoriously murky diction, conspired to render almost every word she uttered inaudible, and the same applied to the following two songs, “Orphan Girl” and “Red Dirt Girl.” It wasn’t until the fourth song, “Beneath Still Waters,” that Harris could really be heard satisfactorily, and after the slightly shaky start, it was pretty much plain sailing from thereon in.

The excellent, thoughtfully sequenced set-list touched almost all corners of the Harris repertoire, encompassing material old and new, covers and original compositions. The tribal-hymnal qualities brought to the Wrecking Ball/Red Dirt Girl material (“Goin’ Back To Harlan,” “Every Grain of Sand,” “The Pearl,” and “Bang the Drum Slowly”) were especially impressive. But the multi-tasking five-piece band (playing drums, accordion, keyboards, fiddle and electric guitar accompanying Harris’s own array of acoustic guitars) proved equally adept at delivering the more polished, straightforward mid-70s tracks as well. Harris has clearly put together a group capable of covering the polished twang of the Hot Band and the deep soulful atmospherics of Spyboy with equal verve.

Harris alluded to the last time she played in the “fair city” of London at last year’s Kate McGarrigle tribute concert and paid homage to her dear friend and collaborator not with the lovely “Darlin’ Kate” from her new album but rather with a stunning cover of “Talk To Me of Mendocino,” certainly the first time I’ve heard her perform this song. Another tip of the hat to influences led to a simply beautiful Gram Parsons-suite comprising new song “The Road,” “Boulder to Birmingham,” and Parsons’ own “Wheels,” perhaps the highlight of the evening for me. To hear Harris sing a line like “the hardest part is knowing I’ll survive” is at once achingly poignant and wonderfully inspiring now, with the weight of the years, and our awareness of the creative uses she’s made of her survival.

Other highlights at the quieter end of the gig included an intimate “Prayer in Open D” and a surprise outing for the exquisite “Shores of White Sand,” while “Luxury Liner” and “Born to Run” (Paul Kennerley’s, not Bruce Springsteen’s) both rocked spectacularly. At the encore, Harris went for nostalgia, opting for the lovely “One of These Days” and Townes van Zandt’s superb “Pancho & Lefty,” both of which sounded dynamic and fresh. The entire show demonstrated once again the exciting, ever-evolving fusion of rock energy, folk intimacy and country soul that has characterised Harris’s work over the past 40 years. Cosmic American Music, indeed.

Harris was supported by the charming young Greenland singer Simon Lynge, who delivered a compelling set of songs from his record The Future, which is well worth checking out.