Bath. Royal crescent, Roman Spas, Jane Austen, Buns, Oliver biscuits, Oh Who Can Every Be Tired Of.
Widcombe social club is both metaphorically and literally on the other side of the tracks. When I first walk in, I go have a series of flashback to 1970s Butlins holidays: the disco mirror ball suspended above the stage, the smell of beer mingled with the smell of fish and chips and sausages in buns, the Morris Dancers leaning on the bar. Well, maybe not the latter. Since I know nothing whatsoever about Morris dancing, I'll just say that the Belles of London are not your typical beery male Morris side, and that three ladies jumping in the air, dancing jigs and waving handkerchiefs while a man plays the accordion feels a lot like the right way to start a folk festival.
First proper act was Maclaine Colston and Saul Rose. Saul plays what I could instantly recognise as a melodian. Mac has a large box, the contents of which he hits with a stick. I would have guessed "portable xylophone", but the programme assures me that it is a hammered dulcimer. He tells us that he recently appeared with the London Philharmonic doing the live version of the Lord of the Rings sound track. (They presumably don't have a regular hammered dulcimerist.) He performs the Shire theme, combined very cleverly with the Chris Wood / Andy Cutting instrumental reel "The History Man."
I've only come to folkie music in the last couple of years, and one of the things I enjoy is playing join the dots, seeing how Song A mutated into Song B. The tradition, I guess you call it. So I spotted some time ago that Mr Dylan's "Man on the Street" is the same as "The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn". Mac and Saul do an uproarious Summerset version of the same song, with a much more Anglo Saxon vocabulary. "How he lived, I never could tell, but that young bugger was always well". Beth Porter joins them on stage and they do Banks of the Sweet Primroses. But the focus of the set is instrumental pieces. "Here are three little tunes to tap your feet to," says Mac before the encore, which sums it up nicely.
Nancy Kerr and James Fagan are sometimes a duo, but today they are a trio with squeeze box man Rob Harbron. Opening number is the rather wonderful "Queen of the Waters", written (like everything on the new album) by Nancy herself. It has a traditional vibe to it, but the rhythms are complicated and the lyrics impressively sophisticated and evocative. ("On a blue-jay morning feathering thorny memories.../On a well worn byway travelling magpie gathering..."). I believe the technical description of this sort of song is "incredibly catchy."
Although there are some songs off the new album, a lot of the material is off the older Station House, which, if my I-Pod is to believed, are some of my favourite and most played tracks: they do the the lovely "Alan Tyne of Harrow" (one of the jolliest songs about capital punishment I've heard); the sweet amalgamation of "Hard to be Leaving Old England" with "I Vow To Thee My Country" and the brilliantly audacious juxtapostioning of Iris DeMent's "Let the Mystery Be" with leftie standard "Pie in the Sky". They are fond of combing songs and tunes into medleys in this way. "I thought a mash up was what you did with potatoes until I watched Glee" explains James.
Although there are some songs off the new album, a lot of the material is off the older Station House, which, if my I-Pod is to believed, are some of my favourite and most played tracks: they do the the lovely "Alan Tyne of Harrow" (one of the jolliest songs about capital punishment I've heard); the sweet amalgamation of "Hard to be Leaving Old England" with "I Vow To Thee My Country" and the brilliantly audacious juxtapostioning of Iris DeMent's "Let the Mystery Be" with leftie standard "Pie in the Sky". They are fond of combing songs and tunes into medleys in this way. "I thought a mash up was what you did with potatoes until I watched Glee" explains James.
I thought the highlight was the, er, mash up of Rob Harbron's accordion composition "Kissing Tree Lane" with Nancy's reworking of the traditional "I wish, I wish..." She really is a bona fide poet, starting with the traditional "I wish I wish but all in vain/I wish I was a maid again/but a maid again I ne're shall be/ til apples grow on orange trees" and ending with the original "Once I was both young and free/ and green leaves grew at my head and feet/ but now by back does bend and bow/ I think my apple's sweeter now.")
I find myself tempted to resort to cliches like "haunting" and "ethereal" (or the catch-all "sweet") to describe the trio's sound: Rob's melodian air wafts over you almost imperceptibly – he's the sort of musician who makes it look like he's not trying; fiddle comes in almost without you noticing; guitar suddenly adds substance and beat, and then Nancy's heart-breaking lyric comes in; finally the song fades away and you are left wondering where it came from and where it went but feeling that you've known it forever.
I find myself tempted to resort to cliches like "haunting" and "ethereal" (or the catch-all "sweet") to describe the trio's sound: Rob's melodian air wafts over you almost imperceptibly – he's the sort of musician who makes it look like he's not trying; fiddle comes in almost without you noticing; guitar suddenly adds substance and beat, and then Nancy's heart-breaking lyric comes in; finally the song fades away and you are left wondering where it came from and where it went but feeling that you've known it forever.
No gig tomorrow (some painful business related saga meant that the promoter pulled Martin Simpson at the last minute, apparently) but hopefully will be back at the club on Monday evening.