Stealing The Show

Saturday 17th September: When the support act took to the stage at the Post Office Social Club tonight, my first impression was that they seemed a little out of place opening for what we were expecting from the headliners. The two tank-top clad ladies, one with acoustic guitar and the other with (I think) some sort of Mandolin, practically screamed “Folk music!” at the audience who, practically to a man, would have been expecting something a bit louder later on.

Two are Helen Turner and Sharon Winfield, who have been writing and playing together since 2006 and have released two albums (One and Two). Tonight’s opener, Morecombe Bay (which, like most of tonight’s song, appears on neither of those albums – and may or may not have been about the cockle-pickers who were drowned there in 2004) sounded a little discordant to me, with a handful of out-of-place “twangs” seemingly intruding into the playing. As the song progressed it became much more flowing, with tight playing and nice harmonies. Grandfather’s Ghost started more softly, leading into a powerful chorus, while Spontaneous came across more as folk-pop than straight folk. One guitar was replaced by a concertina for Dunwich, a hauntingly beautiful song about the small town in Suffolk which has been falling prey to coastal erosion since the 13th century. Raven Mother was based on the German insult, Rabenmutter, for working mothers but I couldn’t hear the lyrics clearly enough to work out whether Helen and Sharon were angry about the term, whether they were being ironic or whether they were simply poking fun at it. The simple guitar work and powerful lyrics of Guns, written about the Columbine school shootings, but just as relevant to those that have happened since, didn’t get the attention they deserved as the swelling crowd also meant increasing background noise. With its lively tone, Shoulder upped the pace a bit, while Witch Song made good use of the girls’ vocals to represent the horror of a woman accused of being a witch during the 1645 trials. Sisterhood, telling the story of women’s rights campaigner Mary Wollstonecraft, ended the set.

Between the songs there was an entertaining line in sometimes self-deprecating humour – “When she was pregnant, we used to play the ‘guess which of us is pregnant’ game. I think I came off quite badly in that.” And the perfect timing of the very funny introduction to Sisterhood simply can’t be reproduced on the printed page. The various themes behind their lyrics may not always be uplifting, but the songs themselves are thought-provoking and, being contemporary in style if not always in content, were certainly more appealing to me than the traditional folk music I have come across. Two may have looked a strange choice of support act, but they certainly entertained my little group and seemed to go down well with a large portion of the whole audience, getting a good reception and seemingly shifting a number of CDs after their set, including a couple to yours truly.

At the beginning of the year, Breathing Space announced that they were splitting up and you could almost hear the sigh of disappointment from their fans. It didn’t take too long for four of the final line-up – Heidi Widdop, Paul Teasedale, Adam Dawson and Barry Cassells – to announce that they were to form a new band, recruiting John Sykes, a past band-mate of Barry, to play keyboards. And so Stolen Earth was born. The band’s first outing was a few weeks ago, at the Cambridge Rock Festival, but tonight is their York launch gig and unsurprisingly the quite large audience features a fair few familiar faces, many of them regular fans of the Mostly Autumn “family” of bands, to which Breathing Space belonged.

Stolen Earth are not, however, Breathing Space resuscitated. Guitar-driven, with Adam alternating between effortless noodling and brash strokes across the strings, rather than keyboard-led they have opted to move away from the proggy ambience of the previous band and towards a rockier sound, the sweeping songs belonging more to the A.O.R. genre, but without the pomp and bombast often associated with that style of music. The new sound is probably better suited to Heidi’s vocals, which are very different to Livvy’s (Breathing Space’s original vocalist). I know that there have been some comments about the sound quality and there were problems with feedback during some parts of the gig. Personally, I thought there was little wrong and was impressed that Heidi’s acoustic guitar could be clearly heard throughout the set. The only “complaint” our group had was that Heidi’s vocals were a little lost in the mix, something which I think was at least partly down to “new song syndrome” – it’s always easier to hear the vocals when the songs are familiar to you and your brain can fill in the gaps.

Tonight’s set, though, was almost totally unfamiliar. Opener I Live begins with a staccato drum beat before bursting into some fairly heavy guitar while Bitterness Fades features a more jangly style with a slightly 60’s feel. Mirror Mirror saw Adam taking over the vocals, appropriately enough seeing as it was one of the tracks on his Lazy Susan single, and had a fantastic sound, with all the instruments coming through. Tuscany Sun is a slower, ballad-like song which, with the help of a video posted on youtube, has already garnered the band airplay on European radio. Unnatural Disaster is, perhaps, the song most like those of Breathing Space (and had already been performed by that band), with its prominent keyboards, fast drum-line and nice guitar and bass solos. With Soul In A Jar, the band edged slightly into Mostly Autumn territory, if only because of the inclusion of some low whistle from Heidi, while Adam started off with an acoustic guitar before moving back to the electric for a rousing middle section leading into John’s lovely ending. My Lips Are Too Dry, which somehow reminded me of both Bon Jovi’s Cowboy and Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again, featured some very strong vocals from Heidi, helped along with a healthy dose of reverb, while Adam came to the fore once again, playing bottleneck guitar during Into The Virgin Snow. A couple of covers followed. The first had us guessing for a while as Adam’s noodling intro seemed to morph around Pink Floyd and The Animals before finally settling into The Eagles’ Hotel California, then Paul switched four strings for twelve for a version of Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. Adam took over the vocals again for a reworked version of his own superb and very emotive Silver Skies and the set ended with the epic Perfect Wave, perhaps the proggiest song on show tonight with a nice change of pace at the end and some superb screaming guitar. The obligatory encore was Clear, Paul’s own song from Breathing Space’s third album, showing that the past hasn’t been completely forgotten.

There were a few hints of nervousness during the set – Adam getting “guitar not turned on” and “guitar not plugged in” mixed up and Heidi dropping her guitar while adjusting a mike stand – along with a slight sense of amazement that so many people had turned up to see them, but overall this was a very assured performance by some top class musicians. The demise of Breathing Space may mean that one branch of the Mostly Autumn rock family tree has been trimmed but, from tonight’s showing, it’s obvious that a seed has broken free and is growing into a strong sapling just outside the shadow of the “parent” band.

Another camera in my face / Another hand around my waist

Friday 9th September: It’s been a while since the whole gang have been out together but tonight we managed to synchronise diaries and turn up at Fibbers for a band whose output we all know (to varying degrees) and like. One of my favourites – the superb Welsh proggers, Panic Room.

On their latest and, so far, longest tour, Panic Room are being supported on a number of dates by David R Black, a self-financed and self-managed rock trio who seem determined to live the rock ‘n’ roll dream. Hailing from Manchester and comprising of David R (guitar and vocals), Sarit Black (bass and backing vocals) and Pai (drums), the band has just released its second album, Secret City, and tonight we were treated to songs both from it and full-length debut Hearts And Stars, as well as from earlier EPs. Opening with the bass-heavy Dark Side Of Her they showed us a style of uncompromising, yet uncomplicated rock. Empire Building gave us strong vocals building to a crescendo, while Secret City had a middle section of pounding drums, with the melodic guitar just about pushing its way through them. Crawl was written by Black who, throughout the set, seemed to be doing her best to play the dark and mysterious, determinedly keeping her eye-line above the (rather small) crowd and avoiding looking at any cameras pointed her way. No Code was followed by Trinity, which featured my favourite guitar work of the set and included a nice change of pace at the end. Signals, with its slow, atmospheric start leading into a lively performance with a guitar sound reminiscent of The Who was, for me, the best song overall. I didn’t catch the title of the next song but the final one, new single Ezra, was helped by another lively performance along with the best lights and backing vocals of the set. I described the set as uncomplicated, by which I mean no slight. It was a set of short, punchy songs for the most part, with no screaming guitar solos or musical histrionics. A good, solid performance and, in hindsight, I wish I had picked up one a CD or two.

Tonight is the fifth time I’ve seen Panic Room – I think that is every time they have played York – and the second time this year. It’s also by far the smallest crowd I have seen them play to, with one or two regulars missing from view. It’s a shame as I doubt it can be sustainable playing to such a small number of people and I can’t help but worry that, even with the band’s tenuous ties to York (two members also play in York’s own Mostly Autumn and Halo Blind) that, eventually, they won’t play here as often. There’s no new album to promote this time around (their third isn’t due until next year) tonight’s set was a slightly re-jigged version of the one I saw back in February. Opening with the monumental Song For Tomorrow, which will feature on the next album and is almost a definitive prog track, with individual sections allowing each musician to shine briefly. Next came Freedom To Breathe and I still can’t help wondering what Anne-Marie is thinking as she sings about the perils of celebrity while having multiple cameras pointed in her direction. This was followed by (I think) 5th Amendment from the Little Satellite bonus disk, Picking Up Knives, The Fall, which somehow seems to exude and air of improvisation, and Reborn – a nice mix of songs from the first two albums. Fans seem a bit divided on I Am The Cat. Personally, I think it’s a nice piece of fun which can be used to break up a set of sometimes quite serious songs. So, when Anne-Marie announced a bit of “pussy action”, I couldn’t hide a wry smile. A return to seriousness with the destruction of the rainforests and Yasumi was followed by a song I haven’t heard played live before. Exodus originally appeared on Contact, Anne-Marie’s solo EP, has been beefed up from a piano-led piece to a full band rocker and is very entertaining. There was mention that it might be recorded in this format some time. The second newly-written song, Promises – another one with obvious brief individual sections – was followed by the brilliant cover of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Bitches Crystal, which has finally seen the light of day on an EP available for sale only on this tour (also including an instrumental version of Dark Star, a very nice animated video for Satellite and two songs already available on the albums – the latter, perhaps, making it less of a bargain than it should have been) and produced an incredibly sultry performance from Anne-Marie. The set ended with the powerful Dark Star and Satellite before the band returned to give us Sandstorms, with the most prominent use of Jonathan Edwards’ keyboards in the set, as an encore.

And it is perhaps those last few words that show my only downside of seeing Panic Room at Fibbers. There always seems to be something wrong with the sound-mix. As ever, Anne-Marie’s vocals were top-notch (it’s not for nothing that she was voted best female vocalist of 2010 by readers of Classic Rock’s Prog spin-off magazine), Yatim’s bass-playing is always clear (and entertaining – tonight he was quite literally climbing the speakers) and drummers always seem well-catered for in the sound department. But, while Paul’s guitar-playing is brilliant (and, from his facial expressions, he sometimes seems to enjoy playing a little too much…) it never quite seems loud enough and I always struggle to pick out Jonathan’s keyboards, unless it’s during a solo spell.

But that’s a small niggle in an otherwise excellent set. The band obviously enjoy playing together and there is a noticeable chemistry between them on stage, with Anne-Marie and Paul trading looks and smiles that seem to imply they are sharing a secret joke. Definitely one of the best live bands around and I hope they continue to grace York with their presence for some time to come.

All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance

Sunday 4th September: The last day of the school holidays and, contrary to the forecast I had seen, the sun was shining this morning. After having my first suggestion for an activity vetoed (due to the the possibility of having to walk through a field of cows) I tentatively put forward the fact that there was live music on in Rowntree Park this afternoon. Surprisingly, the family thought it was a good idea to head down.

In fact, it was the York Peace Festival which, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, provides a mixture of music, activities, and fund raising through the afternoon and early evening, spreading itself along the length of the ornamental lake. The music itself was divided across two main stages – the Arena and the One World Stage (with enough distance between them that you couldn’t hear the acts on one while standing at the other) and a smaller Backyard Cabaret Area, which provided some more “off-the-wall” acts than those of the main stages.

There were specific acts I was hoping to see but we started by having a walk around and Elizabeth was soon entranced by Scrap Value, in the Backyard Cabaret. As the names suggests, they produced percussion music, using “scrap” – pieces of pipe, empty water cooler bottles and what looked like table tennis bats, amongst other things. They were, it has to be said, quite entertaining, producing some unusual noise from everyday objects, but we didn’t have time to watch for long as one of the bands I wanted to see was about to start on the Arena stage.

I’ve seen Falling Spikes three times now and their brand of psychedelic shoe-gazing seems to get better every time. Strangely, the sound for their set today was the best I've heard it and the music came across very well, despite the outdoor setting. I can only remember one song played (I wasn’t taking notes) and that was Shotgun. The band obviously had friends/fans in the audience as a few people got up to dance, staying towards the rear of the concreted area, despite being urged forward by frontman Alexander Peck. It being a festival, it was almost inevitable that the rain would come. And it did, a fine drizzle starting halfway through the set, forcing umbrellas and, in one case, a parasol up and waterproofs on but failing to dampen the spirits of those watching. Despite not being an upbeat band, the Spikes’ set got a warm reception from the increasingly damp crowd.

The next band on were We Could Be Astronauts, were formed last year from the remnants of Hijak Oscar and Idle Jack & The Big Sleep. I hadn’t seen them before today but had heard some positive things about them and, I hav eto say, they were a bit of a revelation. With flamboyant and energetic frontman Robert Loxley Hughes almost seeming to channel Robert Plant (in looks, if not in vocals) they rather appropriately play in a style reminiscent of seventies rock, without making it sound cheesy. Highlight of their set for me was the emotional and near-epic Lost At Sea. There’s a CD in the offing and, if that is one of the tracks on it, there’s a good chance that I’ll be adding it to my collection. It’s perhaps testament to their performance that the crowd, which had diminished between acts at least partly due to the increasingly heavy rain, had swelled considerably by the time the set was done. Debbie, who (let’s face it) isn’t the biggest music fan around, declared them her favourite act of the two so far because Hughes seemed to “have more about him than the other guy”. I think it’s apparent that she doesn’t really appreciate the more introspective aspects of the likes of Falling Spikes. On the basis of this performance, though, I will be trying to see these guys again.

Next it was over to the One World Stage, so Elizabeth could finally get to see one of her favourite acts perform live. No, Justin Bieber hadn’t made a surprise appearance at a small local festival (a la Elton John in The Vicar Of Dibley…) Instead it was Boss Caine, whose songs she has liked since the first time I played his (their?) album The Ship That Sailed. In a short (but very sweet) set we were treated to A Kind Of Loving, Dead Man’s Suit, Ghosts And Drunks and (Everybody Loves You More When You’re) Down On Your Knees. Again the sound was handled very well. It may have been that we were standing (at Elizabeth’s behest) closer to the stage than anybody else, but the vocals and guitar both came across as very clear. Elizabeth declared this as her favourite act of the afternoon and was only slightly disappointed that none of the songs came from the album and, therefore, that she didn’t know any of them. She did have an opportunity to say hello to GT himself earlier in the afternoon but actually went a bit shy (either that or she was starstruck…)

We didn’t really listen to any other acts as closely, although you could hear them as you were wandering around the park. The only other one I feel I could comment on were, according to the programme (and assuming the running order was correct), Atlantika. The programme notes stated “Funky deep house band with uplifting vocals, sampled dance beats and live drums”, which didn’t make them sound that appealing to be honest. However, if it was them that preceded Boss Caine, they actually sounded pretty good and, despite what the quote leads you to believe, also included live guitars and, as far as I could hear, very little sampling.

Other, non-musical, highlights of the afternoon included Elizabeth trying to boil a kettle using just pedal-power (apparently it took three hours of combined effort last year); me continuing to prove that coconut shies aren’t as hard as they look (I’ve had three goes in my entire life and knocked a coconut off twice – hence I’m now retiring…); Local celebrity-spotting – as well as members of bands who were performing we saw Bryan and Livvy from Mostly Autumn and Heidi from Stolen Earth; the largest and stickiest (it must have been the organic sugar) candy floss you will ever lay eyes on; and bumping into Rachael from Coffee On Demand, thereby ensuring we got decent cups of coffee throughout the afternoon. In fact there was almost too much to do – we were primarily there for the music and didn’t look at much else but could have watched dancing, puppet theatre and many other things if we had the time. It may have been damp, but it was certainly enjoyable. Elizabeth got her first taste of “proper” live music and seemed to appreciate, as well as enjoy, it.

And wouldn’t you know it, just as we left the sun came out.