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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? BILLY BRAGG AND
COMRADES
The Barbican, London, February 2nd, 2006 |
| I
sometimes wonder what we did to deserve Billy
Bragg. I mean don’t get me wrong,
I’m sure he’s a nice guy (or should
I say bloke?) and I don’t question the sincerity
of his views, and I would be the first to confess
that he can write a decent song or two, but doesn’t
his brand of simple minded and sanctimonious schoolboy
socialism just wear you down after a while? It’s
the sort of naïve and haplessly enthusiastic
amateurism that would only be tolerated in Britain,
where (judging by his audience tonight) he is held
in high esteem. But I’m sorry, and if I may
use a comedic metaphor, I have to say that for me
he’s the Harry Worth of revolutionary socialism.
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But
then maybe I’m the sort of disenchanted, middle-aged,
comfortably-off cynic that Dick
Gaughan (one of the stellar list of performers
who joined blokey Billy in this BBC 4 sponsored
evening of songs of protest) sang about, preferring
an easy life of material pleasure to one of continual
struggle. Well perhaps. But I don’t see why
I have to put up with patronising primary school
lectures from Billy the Bloke about the p’lyikul
folk tradition, what it means to be English (a subject
which, god help us. Billy Bloque is writing a book),
the English p’lyikul folk tradition, Billy’s
role in the p’lyikul English struggle of the
traditional folk – well, I think you get the
picture. We’re here to listen to some outstanding
talent (on a good day I might even put BB in the
lower quartile of that group) celebrate the songs
of Woody
Guthrie and Ewan
McColl in particular, not to suffer the Blokeoid
bouncing around the stage like a podgy Leninist
Labrador pup with pitiable posture. Enough!
To be frank when I booked these seats the line up
was only about half complete. So I was as surprised
as anyone when, after Billy and his two accompanying
blokes first kicked off with a couple of tunes (including
Florence Reece’s ‘Which side are you
on’, which gave the evening its title) and
then with Robb Johnson sang Woody Guthrie’s
‘I guess I planted’, Donovan walked
on the stage. Looking like a portly pixie who’d
spent the last thirty years in the magic pie shoppe
he briefly presented his credentials - “It
was out of Glasgow that I came, and my father was
a socialist” – and then, sadly, croaked
his way through his mega-hit, Buffy St Marie’s
‘Universal Soldier’. |
Martin Carthy |
But
the evening got better – Martin
Carthy, (who I have come to regard as truly
outstanding since I saw him last year, having revisited
some of his old stuff that I had hidden away, and
explored his newer material) gave us a master class
in two short sessions of how English folk music
should be played and sung. His well chosen songs
were MacColl’s ‘I’m champion at
keeping them rolling’ (yikes – a song
about British truck drivers?), the moving ‘Company
policy’, an angry lament for the lost British
sailors of the Falklands war, and the even more
moving ‘18th June’ , about THAT famous
battle at Waterloo in 1815. If you haven’t
listened to Carthy
then you should – his droning, picking guitar
style is almost unique. But it does remind me a
little of Dick Gaughan, son of Leith, with a spine
shuddering voice and an astonishingly aggressive
and staccato guitar style. In addition to giving
us complacent ones a sharp dig in the ribs, Dick
sang ‘Outlaws and dreamers’ and Peggy
Seeger’s ‘Song of choice’. Frankly
I could have listened to him all night and wouldn’t
have got too cross about his unyielding dialectic
– for a debunking of the romantic myths of
Scottish History as refreshing as Michael Marra’s,
try and find him singing ‘No gods and precious
few heroes’. |
| We
got history of a sort from Maggie
Holland singing her award winning composition
‘A place called England’ (BBC Radio
2 Folk Awards “Best Song of 1999”).
This England, so much admired by Radio 2 listeners,
is one where freedom and liberty is assured to all
good and true providing we set about growing nasturtiums
and runner beans on the land occupied by disused
steel works, shipyards etc. Yes friends, it was
predictable that this had to be followed by an ensemble
performance (Bragg, Gaughan, Holland) of ‘The
world turned upside down’, a celebration of
the short lived Digger movement of the English Civil
War, much feted in a book of the same name by the
great Marxist historian Christopher Hill, who like
all good scholars never allowed facts to get in
the way of an argument. It’s all Golden Age
nonsense really, and only goes to confirm my suspicions
that all Radio 2 listeners live firmly in a fantasy
world. Ironically when I typed ‘The world
turned upside down’ into Google one of the
first references I got was to a
popular song from the seventeenth century lamenting
the defeat of King Charles at the Battle of Naseby,
and the subsequent suppression of festivities (English
good and true) such as Christmas by the radicals
and Cromwell’s New Model Army. Strangely this
song of protest didn’t get onto the set list. |
Left to right: Dick Gaughan, Billy Bragg and
Andy Irvine |
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But some cracking ones did. A real surprise to me
was the foursome of Chris Wood, Karine Polwart,
and Neill and Callum MacColl – the two sons
of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. They performed
three songs written by their father, the stunning
highlight of which was Chris Wood singing the touchingly
cynical ‘The father’s song’. I
read that Wood’s 2005 album The Lark Descending
is a real cracker – put it on your list, it’s
certainly on mine. But before these guys we had,
in my opinion, the star turn of the night, Andy
Irvine of Planxty fame. Readers may recall my
enthusiasm for Irvine from last year’s Planxty
gig at the same venue – apparently Irvine
is a great Guthrie scholar, and much admired by
Mr Bragg. This evening his short performance alone
was worth the cost of the ticket. With Bragg and
Gaughan he performed Guthrie’s ‘Do re
mi’, and solo, playing bouzouki and harmonica
a simply jaw-dropping version of ‘Tom Joad’,
followed by his own song about Guthrie, ‘Never
tired of the road’. Just wonderful. And Billy
didn’t do too badly towards the end as he
sang his lovely ‘Between the wars’...
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| But
then of course it was time for the dreadful bit
when the stage was filled (at least when Gaughan
and half the performers could be lured back from
the smoking room) and the assembled cast stumbled
their way through MacColl’s ‘Dirty old
town’. Of course by this time we were all
bursting to rush for the barricades, so as soon
as the fulsome and largely deserved applause died
down we scrambled for the fenced-in taxi rank. “Anyone
like to share a cab to the revolution in W4?”
- Nick Morgan (photographs by Kate). |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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