Yes, a Sunday night in Brixton and I got in just before Maggie and Lucy Lyrical came on. They are a female, right-on folkish duo who sang a set of almost protest songs on a ukulele and mandolin that were often a bit funny as they sang about how he's too sober to love you or how we should tax the sun. They also threw in the odd cover like a nice version of Little Boxes, but they also managed to go on for about 3 songs too many. I started to lose interest in them as there wasn't enough going on musically.Even if the lyrics to I See UKIP Rising were a pretty good reworking of Bad Moon Rising, I needed slightly less of them.
After the break it was time for The Jazz Butcher & His Gentleman Adventurers as his current quartet are now known. They opened with a show of solidarity for France with Tombe Dans Le Pommes off the most recent album Last Of The Gentleman Adventurers and with the band's trumpeter Simon Taylor being the only band member with an array of effects to play through as well as a selection of mutes to alter his tone or add delays it's a gentle start to the set.
Black Raoul is up next and it has some great walking double bass from one of the two Steve's. New, I think as Pat tells us all about his most special assistant (or cat). He is also asking us to work out the theme of tonight's show as they play Animals. That has become a gentle restrained song that's followed by the fabulous new song Melanie Hargroves Dad's Jaguar which certainly puts a smile on everyone's faces.
They then slip back in time for a great version of Living In A Village. It works really well with the muted trumpet playing off against Pat's acoustic guitar and sure enough it is party time once more. Pat takes the opportunity to wish us all a happy New Year while most of the crowd sing along to it.
|
Mr Odd was slowed down and, well, he is certainly living next door to someone and should we approach him? Well, not sure about that but what Pat has been sure about all his life is how he feels about Shirley MacLaine (yes as ever she is so fine) and the backing for this song is also really fine as the delays on some of the trumpet parts makes it feel like they are drifting on a reverie and we are having visions of Shirley.
The first cover of the set is a nice slow version of You Is A Viper; the old blues classic played at about half the speed Alex Chilton did when he covered it as if they really have smoked that five foot joint and are so laid back they can barely move. The band eventually twitch back to life for a cool and very bluesy Solar Core from the last album.
They close the set with a long version of Quality People that mutates halfway through into Gloria so we have to assume that both Patti Smith and Van Morrison are both quality people living quality lives and who would argue with that.
They then sort of leave the stage but the crowd are cheering so loudly they have to stay for a well-deserved encore of the old Slim Gaillard classic Dunkin' Bagels that somehow becomes Richard Hell's Blank Generation at one point before more bagels get dunked in the coffee. They leave the stage to more cheers and will hopefully be playing a lot more this year.
|
