Tag Archives: St Mary in the Castle

Live review: Steeleye Span at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 21/11/19

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

Twenty-odd musicians passing through the ranks over the years, twenty-odd studio albums, a top five hit and countless songs depicting the cruel, the gruesome and the other-worldly, the folk rock institution that is Steeleye Span is fifty years old this year. This tour is being billed as a celebration of that and the band’s new album Est’d 1969 emphasises the point further.

The focus tonight, however, is not on self-reverential backslapping but firmly on the songs. As lead singer and founder member, Maddy Prior, said when I interviewed her for the Hastings Online Times recently it is the material that has been at the heart of the band’s success. And what a choice of songs we get tonight: from those like ‘The Blacksmith’ that appeared on the band’s very first album to several (like ‘January Man’ and Mackerel of the Sea’) that appear on their latest. There’s plenty of familiar material, like the wondrous ‘Alison Gross’, from the band’s 1970s commercial heyday, but one of the really nice things about a Steeleye Span gig is they never let the set-list become over-familiar. They mix it up from tour to tour, retrieving old songs from their back catalogue, giving others a rest and introducing the audience to new material. Indeed, the set-list tonight is quite different from the last time they performed at St. Mary in the Castle back in 2017.

The line-up of this constantly-evolving band is pretty much the same as the last time they performed here for us, save for Violeta Barrena filling in on violin for Jessie May Smart who is taking time out from the band on maternity leave. On stage the seven musicians really work well together. The ‘electric’ trio of Roger Carey on bass and Julian Littman and Spud Sinclair on guitars provide some real oomph as the band rock out on some of their harder-edged arrangements and provide a lovely contrast to the elegant beauty of Barrena’s fiddle playing and Benji Kirkpatrick’s mandolin. Long-standing Steeleye Span member and local Hastings musician, Liam Genockey, holds it all together on the drum-kit and all of the band members provide some lovely vocals on the choruses alongside Prior.

Of course, there is one song that never leaves the set. “You know what’s coming next,” says Prior when the band come back on for an encore and they launch into a thunderously energetic and suitably celebratory rendition of their 1975 Top 5 hit ‘All Around My Hat’. Rather than delving into yet another familiar old favourite the band finish the night with ‘Dodgy Bastards’, the title song from their excellent 2016 album and we are all able to leave thanking Steeleye Span for fifty years of incredible music.

Set-list:

First half:

Thomas the Rhymer
One Misty Moisty Morning
The Elf-Knight
Alison Gross
The Blacksmith
The Boy and the Mantle (Three Tests of Chastity)
Roadways
Mackerel of the Sea
Seventeen Come Sunday

Second half:

Tam Lin
King Henry
Black Jack Davy
January Man
Wintersmith
Old Matron
Domestic
All Around My Hat
Dodgy Bastards

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http://steeleyespan.org.uk/

Related posts:

Interview with Maddy Prior

Interview with Julian Littman

Review: Steeleye Span at Ashford 2019

Review: Steeleye Span at Hastings 2017

Interview with Steeleye Span’s Maddy Prior

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Interviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This article was originally published by the Hastings Online Times here

Steeleye Span are celebrating 50 years with an anniversary tour. Ahead of their gig at St Mary in the Castle on 21 November, Darren Johnson talks to founder member Maddy Prior.

DJ: You start your winter tour very soon. What can we expect from this fiftieth anniversary tour?

MP: Well we started in the Spring – this is the second part of it. We do some songs from our new album which is called Established 1969 and some classic pieces which are part of our catalogue if you like, so it’s a sort of a mixture. We always do a mixture actually.

One of the things that I like about Steeleye Span is that you vary your set-list from tour to tour. There are old favourites in there but they tend to be a different set of old favourites each time.

We try to keep it varied. If you sing a song for a long time you want to leave it to ‘green up’ as it were. You leave it fallow for a year or two so it sort of greens up again and you have a fresh look at it. And quite often we do slight readjustments of the arrangements and things like that. Sometimes we completely re-arrange them.

You’re at St Mary in the Castle on 21 November. Steeleye Span has had quite a connection with Hastings over the years, hasn’t it?

Yes we do. There’s Liam (Genockey) our drummer – he’s been here forever. And also now there’s Roger Carey in the band as the bass player – so there’s quite a strong connection. And we’re rehearsing here at the moment in Hastings. And also, of course, Peter (Knight) was here for a long time as well. So, as you say, we’ve got strong connections here and we always come here regularly over the years. It’s strong on our map!

For the benefit of our readers who might not have kept up with who’s in the band these days, can you quickly talk us through who’s playing in Steeleye Span these days?

Well, we’ve got some new blood as it were. Violeta Barrena is on fiddle for this tour. She shares the fiddle slot with Jesse May Smart, but Jesse’s just had a baby so she’s taken a back seat for this tour. They’re both brilliant players and they’re both really good improvisers. We’ve got Roger Carey on the bass, Spud Sinclair on guitar and Liam Genockey on the drums. Julian Littman on guitar and Benji Kirkpatrick on various things – guitar, sitar, mandolin. Julian plays keyboards as well, so there’s quite a lot of variety instrumentally. I think that’s everybody – now we are seven!

Can you see Steeleye Span carrying on without you at some point in the future, or would that be like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger?

I don’t know. I’ve no idea. But I think Steeleye is mainly about the material. A lot of which came in with Bob Johnson. Peter Knight brought quite a lot in. Rick Kemp brought quite a lot in. This new band – we’ve done another album of traditional material very largely – which we play around with. We write new tunes and get tunes from all sorts of places. But it’s the material that I think is the point of the exercise really.

So that suggests that there could be some form of Steeleye Span continuing without Maddy Prior?

Are you trying to bump me off?? No, it is something that’s talked about. If you think about it as a small family firm that could go on forever. Just getting to know how the material works is the issue if you like, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t.

Have there been times when being Maddy Prior folk rock icon has got in the way of other musical projects you wanted to pursue or are you happy it’s never stopped you doing anything else you wanted to do?

I don’t think it’s stopped me doing anything I wanted to do. It’s usually helpful on the whole. There’s nothing I’ve missed out on. We were on Top Of The Pops. That was the biggest thing of the day. And we’ve done a lot of tours of big venues and we’ve worked with material that I dearly love.

There aren’t many people on the folk circuit who’ve done Top Of The Pops. Was that a bit of a culture shock?

We had done a lot of work by then. Sell-out tours and so on – it wasn’t out of nowhere. We were well-known by the time we had those songs and we were on the same week as Noddy Holder and Slade, so that was quite interesting.

When you look around at younger bands – and a number say they’ve been influenced by Steeleye Span – do you feel optimistic about the future of the UK folk scene?

Absolutely. There’s so many brilliant young players. They’ve got their chops together fantastically well and they’re interested in the music and there’s a big movement, so it will be interesting to see what happens and where it goes. But the music comes in and out of fashion and we have revivals every so often, but it never quite goes away. Folk music became extremely unfashionable but that’s all it is – fashion. I’ve been literally right outside of the curve and then it comes back to the middle a bit. It’s part of our heritage and it comes knocking on the door every so often.

Ahead of the tour and particularly ahead of the gig in Hastings, is there anything else you’d like to leave us with?

The band is really, really good at the moment. I had a look at us on Wikipedia and it was brilliant because every so often it said “They came back to form” and I thought that was a hell of a good way of putting it. Because over fifty years you’re not going to be perfect all the way through and it’s been like that. But we’ve been very largely led by the songs so if the songs are good we’ve tended to be better. But we found with different people coming in, they bring different energies and different musical styles and that’s what we’ve been like in Steeleye – things change!

maddy p

Steeleye Span 50th Anniversary Tour Thursday 21 November, 7.30m. St Mary in the Castle, 7 Pelham Crescent, Hastings TN34 3AF. Tickets £26.95 including booking fee available from 01323 841414 and online.

Related posts:

Interview with Julian Littman

Review: Steeleye Span at Ashford 2019

Review: Steeleye Span at Hastings 2017

Live review: Marry Waterson & Emily Barker at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 16/10/19

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, , , , , , ,

Described as English folk royalty meets Australian soul the unlikely musical pairing of Marry Waterson and Emily Barker attracted many favourable reviews when the two released an album together A Window To Other Ways back in March this year. Following a successful tour to promote the album, the partnership is enduring and a second tour kicks off tonight in Hastings’ St Mary in the Castle.

For support, the two are joined by a more enduring (but no less talented) duo: St Leonards on Sea’s very own Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou. Now on to their fifth album together, they recently announced that they would be putting the duo on hold for a while so it was nice to be able to catch them together at least one last time. Delighting the audiences with songs such as ‘Everything You Need’ and ‘We Should’ve Gone Dancing’ from their latest album Fair Lady London, it’s good to hear that they are accompanying Waterson and Barker for the whole UK tour not just for this local gig. That should definitely win them over some new fans – even if expanding their fan-base isn’t particularly going to be their number one priority for the foreseeable future!

Waterson (of renowned Yorkshire folk family the Watersons – daughter of Lal) and Barker (Aussie-born, now UK-based, singer-songwriter) met up via a song-writing retreat and explain tonight how the spark of the ensuing partnership meant they both brought fragments of languishing half-written songs to one another and the album project emerged from there. There’s a lovely contrast between their voices, their delivery and their lyrical style – and they way they deftly draw inspiration from a whole range of musical genres from folk to jazz to country rock to bluesy soul. Having previously enjoyed both artists perform solo it is a privilege to see them work their magic on stage together tonight.

Performing songs mainly from their recent album, like the wonderful ‘Drinks Two and Three’ the two do a remarkable job bringing these songs to life. They are ably aided by two musicians who performed on the album: Lukas Drinkwater on electric and double bass and Rob Pemberton on drums, percussion and sampling.

After enthralling us with the songs they created together, the two give us one song each from their respective solo repertoires. As per a request from a member of the audience, Barker hits us with beautifully melancholic ‘No. 5 Hurricane’ from her last solo album, while Waterson delivers a breathtakingly powerful a cappella version of the traditional ‘Farewell Sailor’.

The evening concludes with the full band giving us a joyous, life-affirming version of ‘Bright Phoebus’ the title track of the ‘lost classic’ iconic folk-rock album by Waterson’s mother, Lal, and uncle, Mike. For all her gorgeous Memphis-tinged soul, Emily Barker it turns out, is a huge long-time fan of the Watersons. Maybe her and Marry might treat us to a performance of the full Bright Phoebus album at some future point?

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http://www.emilybarker.com/

https://www.marrywaterson.com/

Related reviews:

Emily Barker at Record Store Day 2017

Marry Waterson and Eliza Carthy – Hastings 2016

Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – Hastings 2019

Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – Fair Lady London

 

Live review: The Counterfeit Stones at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 12/10/19

Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

This review was also published on the Gig Buddies website here

From the camp swagger of a stand-in in Mick Jagger, to the fag-in-mouth rock star posturing of a wanna-be Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards to endless tongue-in-cheek between-song banter (“Don’t worry we’re not going to be doing any of the recent stuff”) a night with the Counterfeit Stones is as much theatre as it is rock gig. However, they play just great and capture the sound of the 60s and 70s Stones really nicely.

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Photo credit: artist publicity

From the very early covers (‘Carol’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’) through to the era-defining Jagger/Richards compositions of the mid 60s (‘Time Is On My Side’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Satisfaction’ et al) through to those perennial giants of late 60s/early 70s rock mega-stardom (including ‘It’s Only Rock n Roll’, ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Honky Tonk Women’) the band kept true to their word of not playing anything released in the last thirty years. The disco-funk of ‘Miss You’ from 1978 and what many consider to be the last really great Stones song – ‘Start Me Up’ (released in 1981) were the most recent material that made the set-list tonight.

Aside from their tongue-in-cheek personas and schoolboy humour stage name’s the band are highly competent musicians who play well together, the Nicky Hopkins soundalike adding a real touch of authenticity. Outfit-wise they eschewed the hounds-tooth jackets or menacing black suits of the early Stones and gone for a late 70s/early 80s Stones look.

The full band are:

  • Nick Dagger is played by Steve Elson.
  • Keef Rickard is played by Stuart Fiddler
  • Charlie Mott is played by John Prynn.
  • Ronnie B Goode are played by David Birnie.
  • Bill Hymen is played by Steve Jones.
  • Nicky Popkiss is played by Holger Skepeneit.

I work for a charity called Stay Up Late which campaigns for adults with learning disabilities to be able to choose the sort of lifestyle they want to live and we also run the successful Gig Buddies project across Sussex. Accompanying me to the gig was Daniel who is one of our participants and an active campaigner for the charity as well as being an avid gig-goer.

Daniel’s verdict: “It was brilliant. I enjoyed dancing. I thought I’d bring my earplugs just in case but I loved how loud it was. Afterwards, I managed to get the whole band’s autographs.”

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https://www.thecounterfeitstones.com/

Preview: Media OS 5.1 – an interactive multi-media event by Partial Facsimile at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 27th September 2019

Hastings music scene, Music news, , , , ,

MEDIA OS 5.1 – An Interactive Multi-Media Concept Album

Partial Facsimile are a Brighton-based sound and visual arts collective who specialise in research-based projects, live music, film soundtracks and site-specific performances. Media OS 5.1, concerns the over-stimulation of digital information and its effects on human behaviour and they bring the live multi-media show to Hastings in September.

Through their eyes, the audience can see films concerning global warming, fake news, social media consumption and surrealism to name a few. Those attending will be able to interact with the films using their smartphones via an app linking them to the scientific research behind their work.

You can see a brief promo clip ahead of their tour here:

vimeo.com/356888702

Ahead of their performance at St Mary in the Castle on 27th September, I caught up with Partial Facsimile’s Ben Baxter (voice artist, bass player, guitarist, writer, composer) to ask what audiences can expect.

“The audience can expect two extremely high quality live music shows in surround sound with huge projections, films and visuals,” explains Ben. “Media OS 5.1 by Partial Facsimile is a concept album written about INFOBESITY and ten film-makers were commissioned to create content specific for each track in their own unique film or graphic style. The six piece band are sculptured with lights and will play behind the large semi-translucent projection screen with the films being the main focus for the audience. During the performance, the audience will be immersed in a 5.1 surround sound circle of speakers and can use their smartphones to snap QR codes that appear on the screen.”

The interactive element is an important part of their work work. I ask Ben if that perhaps brings an element of unpredictability to the evening?

“The question of predictability is interesting,” says Ben. “At many concerts the audience are often encouraged to focus on the performance rather than on their smartphones. In our show we are encouraging the use of phones to heighten the experience of attending Media OS 5.1. However, you can never accurately predict human behaviour so we will have to wait and see if the audience engage or not.”

The evening will also include ‘Abstractions’ by Richard Norris which is a solo live performance and interpretation of his studio project.

“It is a deep listening ambient experience with visuals by Blue Carbon. Mr Norris has just performed this show at London’s famous South Bank Centre as part this years Meltdown Festival curated by Nile Rogers. Richard will also be spinning tunes after the show to round off the evenings entertainment.”

“We feel that live music and especially multimedia performances are in need of support. A ticket to the entire evening is the same price as two pints of beer and less than a packet of cigarettes! We strongly encourage the people of Hastings to come out and support the event in the beautiful setting of St. Mary’s in the Castle.”

Tickets available here

As an exclusive offer they are offering free student tickets for the Hastings show to the first 100 students to apply using the following link here

Website: Partial Facsimile

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Live review: The Blues Band at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 16/6/18

Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

This review was originally published by The Stinger here

Vocalist and harmonica player, Paul Jones, departed pop/r&b group Manfred Mann for a solo career in the mid 1960s but in the event said career ended up being more about acting than about singing. However, in 1979 he and some friends got together The Blues Band and, almost forty years later, they are still gigging and recording.

The first half of their set at St Mary In The Castle tonight is heavily dominated by songs from the brand new album which the band are completely shameless in endlessly plugging tonight, so much so that it becomes something of a running joke between each song. (For this most civilised bunch of blues hellraisers there is also a plug for the band’s roadie’s art exhibition which comes to Hastings this summer, too.) The relentless plugging seems to have done the trick, however, and there is a very healthy queue to buy the album and get it signed by the five band members during the interval. Indeed, with the quality of songs on offer tonight it is easy to see why the band are understandably very proud of the album. Comprising nine original tracks and three arrangements of old traditional songs ‘The Rooster Crowed’ is released this month.

When we think of the blues musicians we tend to think of the guitar first and foremost, and there is some excellent blues guitar tonight, but the harmonica is as much a signature sound of traditional blues as the guitar and I was struck by how central Jones’ harmonica-playing is to the performance tonight and, moreover, what a brilliantly emotive player he is.

The second half sees the band delve back into some earlier material. However, unlike Jones’ other outfit, The Manfreds (who guitarist, Tom McGuinness, and drummer, Rob Townsend, also tour with) it’s less about rattling through a back catalogue of top ten hits and more about celebrating the history of the blues over many, many decades. Accordingly, band material is interspersed with renowned classics like Fats Domino’s ‘Let The Four Winds Blow’ and Big Joe Turner’s ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’.

Seeing the Blues Band live was a first for me, although I do remember my dad buying their debut album not longer after it came out. However, it is clear the band are able to deliver seemingly effortless musicianship without ever losing that all-important ability to really connect with an audience on an emotional level. A highly enjoyable gig.

http://www.thebluesband.net/

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Live review: Show Of Hands at St Mary in the Castle 4/5/18

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, , , , , , ,

This review was originally published by Hastings Online Times here

Touring together since the early 90s, picking up more awards than you’d care to mention and selling out the Albert Hall on several occasions, Devon’s Show Of Hands are one of the best-known names on the contemporary folk scene. As the venues got bigger and the album sales increased the original duo of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer were joined by double bass virtuosos, Miranda Sykes, along the way.

For this tour however, sans Sykes, the duo have decided to go back to their roots, performing songs from early on in their career. They are ably supported by Geoff Lakeman, father of a whole brood of award-winning folk musicians in Sean, Sam and Seth Lakeman. An engaging folk singer and concertina player with a lifetime’s experience as part of the local west country folk scene, Lakeman entertains the audience as he adopts the bemused persona of someone who finds themselves touring in support of their very first album at the age of 69.

Show Of Hands’ set features songs from Knightly and Beer’s early years of playing together at the Deer Leap folk club in Devon, in addition to songs voted for by their fans from the duo’s first five albums. There’s a nice variety in terms of both traditional material and Knightley’s own songs. As one would expect, it’s also a great showcase for Beer’s musical genius on fiddle, guitar and mandolin. Perhaps more so than a typical Show Of Hands gig, however, the nature of the performance gives the two a real opportunity to talk about their original coming together as a duo, their musical influences and some of the things that had happened to them over the years – both the hilarious and the poignant.

Introducing ‘Seven Yellow Gypsies’ Knightley explains that they were once playing the song to a group of musicians in India when the host musicians responded with a song of their own that had an almost identical melody and subject matter. It’s a lesson in realising however English we might think many of these old folk songs are there is something universal about much traditional music and also reminds us how well-travelled some of these songs are.

It isn’t all music from the early days though. The duo wrap up with a ‘greatest hits’ collection, giving some of their best-known anthems like ‘Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed’, ‘Country Life’ and ‘Cousin Jack’ a good airing. There’s plenty of Life In Show Of Hands yet and, I’m certain, there’ll be plenty more caustic observations of modern-day life but for this tour it was nice, also, to celebrate the duo’s early days with them and to learn a bit more about what brought them together.

https://www.showofhands.co.uk/

Show of Hands

Photo Credit: Simon Putman

 

Live review: King King at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 3/5/18

Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , ,

This review was originally published by The Stinger here 

Four-piece King King have been building quite a formidable reputation since forming a decade ago. ‘The best blues rock band in the world’ no less, according to Blues Rock Review.

It’s a big sound and a very classy sound that fills the cavernous St Mary In The Castle tonight, and one that just oozes the confident charm and riff-laden swagger from classic rock’s heyday when band’s like Bad Company dominated the album charts and filled the stadiums. Integral to the whole sound, and one of the things that really makes the gig special for me, is the interplay between guitarist Alan Nimmo and keyboard player Jonny Dyke. Dyke, the new boy in the band who replaced departing keyboard player Bob Fridzema last year, delivers deliciously soulful Hammond that perfectly compliments Nimmo’s guitar wizardry and bluesy vocals.

At the heart of all great blues rock, however, are great songs and King King certainly don’t disappoint in that department either. Songs like ‘You Stopped The Rain’ and ‘Rush Hour’ show some quality song-writing. And lyrically it’s not just standard stadium blues rock fare of feeling alright or looking for love. Material from the new album ‘Exile & Grace’, in particular, concentrates on some altogether more profound subject matter. “There’s an underlying theme on this latest album,” explained Nimmo, when launching the album late last year. “Some of the main songs are about the state of the world, y’know, this beautiful blue planet that’s turning into a battlefield.” ‘Broken’ one of the songs tonight from the new album is very much on that theme of a troubled world. In spite of the uncompromising lyrics though it’s delivered with the same class and seemingly effortless appeal that defines all the great songs of this genre.

While Nimmo has had issues with his voice in recent years and had to undergo treatment on his vocal chords, there’s no sign of that hampering the performance tonight and the whole band give an absolute master-class in classic blues rock.

Setlist:

She Don’t Gimme No Lovin’
Waking Up
You Stopped The Rain
Broken
Long History
Lose Control
Rush Hour
Long Time Running
All Your Life
Stranger To Love
Let Love In

https://www.kingking.co.uk/

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Live review: Lindisfarne at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 24/3/18

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This review was also published by the Hastings Online Times here 

After well-received performances from both Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span at Hastings’ St Mary in the Castle this past year, it perhaps came as no surprise that it was time for that other giant of the late 60s/early 70s folk-rock: Lindisfarne.

The band had been on hiatus for around a decade but the Lindisfarne name was resurrected in 2013 when founder member, Ray Jackson, began touring with a number of other former members from various eras of the band. They were soon to find that there was clearly a huge amount of affection out there for the Tyneside folk-rockers but after a couple of years Jackson stepped back and retired. That was not the end of the reunion, however, as in stepped another founder member with Rod Clements from the band’s classic line-up taking Jackson’s place.

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Audiences are no longer treated to Jackson’s brilliantly distinctive and instantly recognisable mandolin-playing (the man who came up with the mandolin intro on Rod Stewart’s ‘Maggie May let’s not forget) but Clements is a gifted musician (switching between electric fiddle, mandolin and slide guitar) and an engaging presence on stage. He’s joined by Dave Hull-Denholm, son-in-law of original front-man the late Alan Hull, on vocals/guitar; Charlie Harcourt, who originally played with the band in the mid 70s, on guitar; Steve Daggett, who toured with the band in the 80s, on keyboards; Ian Thompson who, like Hull-Denholm, has been around since the 90s, on bass; and, finally, former Roxy Music drummer, Paul Thompson, on drums.

Denholm-Hull’s voice is surprisingly reminiscent of Alan Hull’s distinctive vocals and he does the band’s legacy, and his late father-in-law proud. There are plenty of Lindisfarne classics to keep the Hastings crowd entertained, too: ‘Lady Eleanor’, Road To Kingdom Come’, ‘Wake Up Little Sister’, ‘We Can Swing Together’, ‘Meet Me on the Corner’ and, of course, ‘Fog On The Tyne’, Newcastle’s finest produced so many unforgettable songs back in the day and the band tonight cram so many of them into two hours.

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With bands like the aforementioned Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention going from strength to strength in recent years it’s nice also to also see Lindisfarne firmly back in business – and playing and sounding great. Maybe it’s time for an album, too, guys?

 

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Photo credits: Richard Broady

http://www.lindisfarne.com

Related review:
Lindisfarne at Great British Folk Festival

Live review: The Young ‘uns – The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 22/3/18

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, , , , , ,

Teesside-based folk trio The Young ‘uns have been singing about injustices, historical and modern, for some years now, releasing four well-received albums and touring folk venues and festivals up and down the country. Their songs, written by the trio’s Sean Cooney, have covered everything from fighting poverty in the 1930s to fighting homophobia in the 2010s.

The Young ‘uns latest tour, however, The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff is devoted to a single theme. Johnny Longstaff was born in Stockton-on-Tees just after the First World War. Poverty and unemployment drove him to London as a teenager, via the Hunger March of 1934. Whilst in London Longstaff became more and more politicised, volunteering for the Spanish Civil War in 1936 as a young man of just seventeen. Longstaff recalled his experiences in a series of recordings in the 1980s. Using excerpts from these tapes and photo montages from the period interspersed with their songs, The Young Uns bring his story to life once more.

With sixteen songs composed by Cooney the trio sing their way through Longstaff’s remarkable life. Songs like ‘Any Bread’ and ‘Carrying The Coffin’ recall the poverty and destitution of life in the north-east in the Great Depression while ‘Cable Street’ retells the tale of the famous battle with Moseley’s fascists on the streets of London. As the show unfolds songs like ‘The Great Tomorrow’, ‘Trench Tales’ and ‘David Guest’ recall the experiences of fighting Franco’s fascists, from the bitter conditions and lack of food to the heroics of fallen comrades that Longstaff fought alongside. The show ends with a rendition of ‘The Valley Of Jarama’, a song song sung by Spanish Civil War veterans and written by Alex McDade, himself one of the volunteers of the British Battalion fighting the fascists. Although the forces against fascism were defeated in Spain, Longstaff, who died in 2000, was adamant that the Spanish Civil War was a vital prerequisite for the successful defeat of fascism in the guise of Hitler’s Nazism just a few years later.

I’ve seen the Young ‘uns on multiple occasions now and their live performances, in addition to their brand of movingly defiant songs, usually involve much hilarious ad-libbed banter, both between themselves and with the audience. With The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff, however, the guys prove that their gift for storytelling and their natural affinity with the underdog also means they can pull of a project as ambitious as this and move an audience to tears in the process.

http://www.theyounguns.co.uk/

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Related reviews:
The Young ‘uns at Cecil Sharp House
The Young ‘uns at Great British Folk Festival