Tuesday 18 February 2014

support live music

We went last night to the Colchester Arts Centre, to hear folk duo Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman.  I first came across Kathryn Roberts nearly twenty years ago, when as a very young woman she recorded an excellent album with Kate Rusby.  You might have heard of Kate Rusby, who released a decent cover version of the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, used as the theme tune of the BBC's Jam and Jerusalem, and has in the past been nominated for the Mercury Prize. You have probably not heard of Kathryn Roberts, unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore folkie.

Sean Lakeman is the oldest of three musical brothers.  You are more likely to have heard of the youngest, Seth, another Mercury Prize nominee and smouldering sex symbol from Dartmoor.  He took the 2007 BBC folk awards for best singer and best album, but in 2013 it was the turn of his older brother and sister-in-law, with best duo.  That wasn't why we went to see them.  They were due to visit Colchester years ago, and had to cry off due to illness, and we were planning to go then.

It was a good gig.  They played a mixture of their own material, other recently written songs, and traditional numbers.  They did them well, with a real feel for the music, and a nice line in stage patter.  Their own songs were pretty good, especially one about a love affair gone wrong, which told the complete story in three verses, with a nice twist of the refrain at the end.  I love economy in a song, rather than taking seven or eight verses and maundering about repeating yourself to describe something that could have been got down in half the length.

Kathryn Roberts sings, and plays keyboard, clarinet and flute.  She has a great voice.  The quality of female vocalists on the folk circuit at the moment is mixed, with some of the younger generation going for a breathy, naive style which might be meant to convey authenticity, but to me suggests lack of technique.  June Tabor is wonderful, as is Linda Thompson when she's singing, and the excellent Julie Murphy, sometime of Fernhill, follows in their footsteps, as does Niamh Dunne of the young Irish band Beoga.  Kathryn Roberts is up there with them.  She has a strong, deep, supple voice, one which I guess would train up to quite a big mezzo, if she were classically trained.  And she is funny, charming, and sexy.

Sean Lakeman plays the guitar, and doesn't sing at all, not even a tiny bit of backing vocals.  He is a very, very good guitar player.  I couldn't tell you exactly what he was doing, because I only ever learned just enough guitar to understand that I was never going to be the faintest use as a guitarist.  So I stopped.  The Systems Administrator said that it was good, heavy blues guitar, and that the pair of them ought to do more overtly American music from the south, they had the sound for it.  Perhaps they will.

So we went home in a thoroughly good mood, after a good gig.  I don't think the SA was overly enamoured of going, before we went, and came out mainly to humour me, so it was nice that we enjoyed ourselves, and a reward for other evenings spent sitting through things we found we didn't like very much, but had tried in a spirit of enquiry.  It can be a lucky dip, supporting live music.

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