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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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THE RHYTHM FESTIVAL
(part one)
Twinwood Arena, Bedford, August
21st-23rd 2009
It’s
festival time. We’ve given Cropredy a miss,
probably a bad move as it happens. The line-up
there (for a change) was first rate, the weather
fantastic (despite the presence of Richard Thompson,
who traditionally acts as a rain-magnet), and
the performances (so I’m told) top-notch.
|
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| Instead,
we’ve returned to the friendly Rhythm Festival,
which despite low attendances last year, and other
festivals falling by the wayside due to poor ticket
sales, has managed to stagger on. There don’t
seem to be many people here this year, although
as I’ve observed before, the Twinwood Arena
can easily soak up a large number of people without
seeming very full. |
The
two campsites are fairly busy, but we still managed
to get a good spot for the Whiskyfun Teepee (yep,
that’s what the recession can do for you)
and Jozzer pitched his next door. |
 |
| You’ll
probably remember the Twinwood Arena: a former RAF
base, famous as Glen Miller’s point of departure
for his fateful journey into oblivion, and which
serves as a venue for events, as a second world-war
museum and as shrine to the memory of the lost band-leader.
It’s full of surprises, and it’s full
of beer, which is just as well; last year, if my
memory doesn’t fail me, they ran out of ale
early on Sunday afternoon. In this year of the ‘staycation’
there’s a very British holiday atmosphere
to the place: beer with bacon for breakfast, followed
by beer; beer and burgers for lunch, followed by
more beer, then beer and biryani for dinner, followed
by a few glasses of you-know-what. Actually that’s
not quite true. For some, it’s cider and cereal
for breakfast, followed by cider; cider and sausages
for lunch, followed by more cider, then cider and
succotash for dinner. The wonderfully diverse bunch
of characters that we came across (sadly, all their
nicknames, awarded by the start of day two, are
unprintable) stayed in fairly good order; the Photographer
having to bark at only one rather hapless intoxicate.
When things did get slightly out of hand, the miscreants,
a team of stewards and the police ended up providing
a wonderful Sunday morning comedy half-hour, causing
most of the main campsite to lay down their newspapers,
turn off the Archers on the radio, and adjust the
position of their fishing chairs for a ringside
view. Maybe it was street theatre? |
 |
Oli
Brown |
| It’s
an equally diverse bill which includes the up-and-coming
and the over and out. In the former category was
frighteningly youthful blues guitarist
Oli
Brown, who played a passable set with
his band on Friday, but seemed a little out of place
on such a big stage faced with a relatively small
audience. Veteran pub rockers Eddie
and the Hot Rods probably fall into
the latter category, but no-one had told either
cadaverous vocalist Barrie Masters, or ace guitarist
and Whiskyfun fan Richard Holgarth, who together
delivered a blistering performance on Saturday afternoon
under equally blistering sunshine. There was also
less reliance on big names from the United States,
perhaps given that in 2008, some had performed so
lamentably badly. |
| However,
Gandalf
Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams
have returned as festival favourites, openers and
closers, following their sterling efforts in the
rain last year. I have to say I’m not quite
sure what all the enthusiasm was about. Wonderful
festival fodder, perfectly pleasant but perfectly
ordinary (despite the name) would be my conclusion.
Original material that nonetheless trawls through
a very obvious series of largely American influences,
ranging from Dylan to Diamond, with a touch of Johnny
Cash and Tom Petty in between. It’s nice,
but not going anywhere. Perhaps I’m missing
the point, or maybe it’s just that their faux
hippyism stirred a distant fond memory in the ale-
and cider-fuddled minds of the largely fifty-something
audience, prompting their astonishing generosity. |
Jozia Longo (Gandalf
Murphy) |
| Of
more interest was Alvin
Youngblood Hart, who began his Sunday
afternoon set firmly in North Mississippi Hill Country
Blues style. He then moved through an eclectic selection
of songs, using a wonderful collection of guitars
including a lovely Harmony Bobkat, and took in urban
blues, country and western and what used to be called
blues-rock (in a very British vein). Despite a heavy
cold (“This swine flu’s whooping my
ass, man”) and some odd tuning from his guitar
tech, he turned in a lovely cameo performance; in
short, a big recommendation. If you can’t
get to see him live then you can see him sing a
couple of songs in the commendable Wim Wenders movie,
‘The soul of a man’. Equally worth seeking
out is the smart-suited and distinctly coiffured
Terry
Reid, one of the great nearly-men of
rock and roll, and for many years a permanent resident
of the USA (not that he hasn’t lost a very
cheeky English conversational style of presentation).
Reid is one of the great rock voices, as he demonstrated
in his Saturday evening set. You may remember we
saw him last year at a disastrous gig with Mick
Taylor (Reid was far from being the culprit, but
fell victim, like the audience, to a spat between
Taylor and drummer Mitch Mitchell). Here he’s
with his own band, his own songs, some beautiful
guitars and a hot-rod Telecaster merchant, Ed
Rainey, to whom he’s happy to give a lot
of space. There’s a strangely morose (not
to say frankly slushy) feel to much of his more
recent material (odd, given the irrepressible nature
of the singer), and sadly, a sense that his still
remarkable voice could do with some better and less
ponderous songs. |
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Terry Reid |
THE RHYTHM FESTIVAL (part two)
Twinwood Arena, Bedford, August
21st-23rd 2009 |
| There’s
probably always one thing that sticks in your memory
about a weekend like this, and sad to say on this
occasion, it was abject sound engineering on the
main stage, which plagued performers throughout.
Glenn
Tilbrook was the first to fall foul
of this on Friday, when he performed with his Fluffers,
an engaging and lively set that ranged from material
from their new album Pandemonium Ensues, to classics
from his Squeeze back catalogue. Mr Tilbrook has
always struck me as one of music’s more genial
characters, but his increasing frustration with
the inability of the sound crew (who for much of
the Festival had the appearance of frightened rabbits)
to get the stage sound right was evident for all
to see. Thankfully, that didn’t stop him,
according to my notebook, from playing his guitar
with his arse, an unusual technical accomplishment
that I seem to have erased from my memory. More
sound chaos ensued with Friday night headliners
The
Proclaimers, who were still very capable
of captivating a crowd with tight harmonies and
well-chosen material from their new album Notes
and Rhymes, their hits such as ‘I would walk
500 miles’, and their covers, such as an electric
treatment of Wreckless Eric’s ‘Whole
wide world’. But their road manager spent
much of the set glowering across at the sound desk
who struggled with monitor levels, in the sort of
threatening way large six-foot-plus Scots can have
when they put their mind to it. Saturday’s
headliners, Alabama
3, ended up doing the mixing themselves.
Thus, harmonica player and tapes man, the permanently
anxious-looking Mountain of Love spent as much time
at the desk as he did on the front of the stage.
Nonetheless, and despite a looming curfew (a result
of the time it had taken to get the sound at least
passable for them to take the stage), they turned
in a characteristically high-energy set; Larry Love
ended the evening leading the crowd in some community
singing when the band were prevented from returning
for an encore. Drawing on classics from Exile on
Coldharbour Lane, the set also featured songs from
MOR and Outlaw, and a couple of tracks from their
forthcoming album Revolver Soul (co-produced, apparently,
by ex-bassist Mr Segs), which they will be touring
later in the year. |
Glen Tilbrook
A Proclaimer
D-Wayne
Love (Alabama 3)
Larry
Love (Alabama 3)
|
| Other
festival highlights? Well, Nick
Harper’s solo set featured some interesting
songs played in an unusual open-tuned flamenco style,
with singing-cum-rapping and fadoesque lyrics. The
Demon Barbers, despite their plaudits, only
served to remind me what was wrong with a lot of
so-called ‘folk-rock’. The Photographer
wandered off and found herself having a very nice
chat with Jacqui
McShee, who with husband Gerry Conway, keyboards
player Spencer Cozens and others turned in a tidy
set as Jacqui
McShee’s Pentangle. The Strawbs’
‘acoustic’ (let’s ignore the booming
bass pedals that also seemed to act as an orchestron
of sorts) sadly confirmed all my prejudices about
the outfit; apologies to any Strawbs fans reading
this. And Dave Cousins’ tea-bag dyed hair
was almost as ghastly as the music. The
Blow Monkeys had feedback problems and their
AWB-style groove seemed out of place at six o’clock
on a very hot Saturday afternoon. The
Beat, led by an impossibly high-energy
Ranking Roger and his son Ranking Junior (who was
struggling to keep up with his dad), were fantastic:
I’d forgotten just what great songs ‘Mirror
in the bathroom’ and ‘Too nice to talk
to’ were. Eric
Bell, one-time lead guitarist with Thin Lizzy
is best described as a disappointment, even fluffing
his most famous riff, the memorable introduction
to ‘Whisky in the jar’. And the excellent
James
Hunter? Well, he closed the weekend
for us, but seemed totally out of place in Sunday’s
late afternoon sunshine: his unique take on R&B
is night-time music. But he turned out a typically
tight and perfectly-sung set which got the crowd
dancing, with Alvin Youngblood Hart admiring Hunter’s
impossible guitar technique from the side of the
stage. And I noticed that some of his band’s
kids were having a great and no doubt rare time
enjoying their Dads’ playing. |
The Photographer with
Jacqui McShee
Dave Cousins
Ranking Roger
James Hunter |
| Of
course there was a lot more going on besides all
of this, what with digital circuses, solar cinemas,
therapy zones and the like, in addition to all the
bars. A limited range of food providers produced
some decent enough grub, and lurking among the Nissen
huts were some gloriously tranquil and perfectly
clean cloakrooms (who ever heard of electric hand
driers at a rock festival?). The ever-optimistic
promoter Jim Driver was already selling tickets
for next
year’s event before this one
had finished, so who knows, we may be back next
year, too.- Nick Morgan (performance photographs
by Kate) |
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