At last was it the third or fourth attempt Alasdair Roberts finally made it down to London to play at The West Hampstead Arts club as part of his current UK and Norwegian tour to promote his most recent album Grief In The Kitchen Mirth In The Hall that came out on Drag City Records in March.
Being that this is a venue I can walk to from here, I of course was one of the last people to arrive, to find that this show was seated in a proper old school Folk basement style, only without the clouds of Gauloise and jazz Cigarette smoke.
By the time I took my seat near the back The Internationals were well into their set, they were performing as a duo of Naosan Moore and Frederico Vilar, the first song I heard was You Didn't Want To Know that had good harmonies and was a folk pop song of rejection.
Naosan explained that the next song The Start Of Something will be on the band's debut EP that they are currently working on, before the duo, sang this song that dependent on the production could either be a folk song, or go a bit Boyzone with a dance beat, it seemed to go down well either way. They finished their set with Can't Let Go one of those songs about not wanting to move on even when it probably would be for the best if you did. They sounded tight and with the right production have a good chance of doing well when that EP finally comes out with the full band next year.
After a short break it was time for Alasdair Roberts first set, that he explained would be mainly made up of songs off of Grief In The Kitchen Mirth In The Hall, all of the songs in this set are traditional Scottish or Irish folk songs as he opened with The Wonderful Grey Horse that was carefully picked and sung so you could hear all the nuance in the lyrics of this dark tale.
Alasdair explained that Kilbogie was about a Lowlands town or village, that may or may not actually exist, before singing this dark twisted tale of love gone awry between a highland lass and a lowland man. The Bonnie Moorhen was a great old tune about Bonnie Prince Charlie getting up to no good, while trying to remain anonymous.
Young Airly is a bewitching old folk love song, with a couple of deadly twists that Alasdair accentuated with his nuanced guitar picking. The Holland Handkerchief was the first song he sang acapella that allowed for even more emphasis on the words as they were carefully enunciated in his thick Scottish brogue.
The Lichtsbob's Lassie it was explained was about a woman a light infantryman was in love with, of course it ended badly, it always does in these sorts of songs, as that finger picked guitar punctuated all the twists in the tale. The Baron O'Brackley is a twisted murder ballad where the good Baron is made to confront the invading horde by his wife, who has a thing for the leader of the enemy troops, so dooms him to his fate.
Mary Mild came with a tale about how the song is also called the Bitter Withy and has been recorded by Joan Baez among others, it's also about a Scottish king getting up to no good with the servants and the fate of the servant when she falls pregnant.
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The first set closed with The Silver Tassie the Robert Burns poem that Alasdair sang acapella carefully bringing all the meaning out of the lyrics that again were somewhat dark, full of portentous imagery.
After a short break for everyone to get another drink, in my case another Old Fashioned a cocktail that seemed perfect to drink while listening to old folk songs, Alasdair returned and the second set was made up mainly of songs he's written himself, each song he performed came from a different album.
The set kicked off with the Old Men Of The Shells from The Amber Gatherers as this convoluted tale wove it's magic, while sounding like it could easily be a couple of hundred years old rather than about 16 years old.
He then sang The Downward Road from Pangs that was a hard-bitten road song with enough twists to feel like you're descending from the highlands. The Fight Of Grief And Joy was a re-working of a much older song that Alasdair described as being a battle that might go unsolved as he made clear just how inextricably linked the opposing emotions of Grief & Joy can be.
What I guess was the Secret Of Peace was one of the only songs he didn't introduce as this despairing tale of how the warring factions can be brought together to live peacefully infused us with its bitter ironies.
Alasdair joked before playing The Tender Hour about how he recorded the song with the Norwegian band Volver despite not being able to pronounce the band's name properly. The song was indeed rather tender even if it did have a few traps for the lovers to fall into along the way.
Alasdair then got close to a sea shanty with a song about a Scurvy Son who sounded like he was in a heap of trouble. Coral And Tar kept the bleak feel of much of the set keeping things nice and Wyrd.
He closed the set by playing the most upbeat song of the set that was introduced as being a tribute to Joseph Spence one of Alasdair's favorite guitarists. It may well have been I Bid You Goodnight but I really am not certain.
He left the stage to loads of applause and came back for a well-earned encore, treating us to his acapella take on The Heathery Hills that may well be an Irish folk song originally, but with Scotland's profusion of Heather he's claiming it for Scotland, this was a cool end to a very enjoyable set that went down a treat.
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