I went last night to the Mercury Theatre in Colchester to hear a couple of blues guitarists. They were on as part of the theatre's first ever Lights Up! festival, a celebration of the extraordinary range of creative and performing arts talent on display here in Colchester and in North Essex (that's what it said in the brochure). I am not sure if the Mercury's Artistic Director found the extent of local talent extraordinary because it was so much than you would find anywhere else, or if it was simply more than he expected because he didn't imagine north Essex would throw up any artistic talent, but either way he's having a festival of it.
The show was billed as an evening of contemporary folk and blues, and featured Ramon Goose and Adrian Nation. I'd never heard of Ramon Goose, but blues isn't my specialist subject so that didn't mean he wasn't famous in blues circles. I'd heard Adrian Nation a couple of times before and thought he was good, so was prepared to take a chance on Ramon Goose. Adrian Nation lives in Clacton-on-Sea, not renowned for being a cultural hotspot. He is tall and thin, with long hair and an earring, with a very Essex line in sardonic chat, and I suspect an extremely kind heart, and he is a very good guitarist. My dad has also heard him and liked him, and thought he'd heard Ramon Goose as well, though when we got to the interval he had to admit that he'd muddled him up with someone else and hadn't.
The Mercury was nowhere near full, which was a shame given the quality of the guitar playing on offer. I wasn't entirely surprised. Blues is a pretty niche interest, and a hot evening in July is not the easiest time to fill a theatre. I got the impression that Adrian Nation had brought his own fan base, but that Ramon Goose had lived away from the area for too long and hadn't. He turned out to be a technically superb guitarist as well, though I preferred his traditional blues and spiritual numbers to his self penned songs. It is very, very hard to write good songs. Many try and few succeed. Ramon Goose was rather a contrast to Adrian Nation, being short and roundish with cropped hair and a boyish face, and I fell to wondering once or twice at the fickleness of fate, that the short, round, good natured Ed Sheeran who hails from these parts was playing Wembley stadium, while the almost certainly technically superior Goose was playing to a half empty Mercury theatre. I guess charisma and luck come into it, or maybe Ed Sheeran writes better songs, thought the ones I've heard on Radio 2 haven't left me rushing to buy the album.
The audience were very well behaved, apart from the man in the row in front of us who kept putting his phone on. Gentlemen and ladies, that little luminous screen is highly visible in the dark to everybody in the rows behind you. Your texts can keep until later. He seemed to know Adrian Nation, but that made it more annoying since he should have been behaving. One of the things I like about live classical music is that while you get the odd bit of programme rustling, digital devices remain firmly out of sight for the most part. Ramon Goose seemed rather spooked by the silence, and invited us to natter since he was playing blues, but thankfully nobody took him up on the suggestion. If I've set an evening aside to go to a concert and forked out on two tickets (belated father's day present) I'd like to concentrate on the music when I get there.
I'm not sure the Mercury will do it again. Adrian Nation and Ramon Goose would probably have been better off at the Headgate Theatre, which has got a track record of putting on acoustic folk and blues, and has a smaller auditorium that they might have filled. Or else the Arts Centre, which knows how to make itself look full by setting up cafe style tables and chairs at the front for folk acts that haven't sold enough tickets to fill the central aisle.
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