Thursday, 18 December 2008
Under One Sky videos
Just to follow up on the previous post: here are links to the Scottish TV website, showing an interview with John McCusker, and a performance of Hush A Bye. Oooh, lovely stuff.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Under One Sky concert review
To The Lowry in Salford for a performance of John McCusker's 'Under One Sky'.
Originally commissioned by the Cambridge Folk Festival and Celtic Connections, the piece went so well that it is currently on a short tour with much the same cast-list: regular McCusker collaborators such as Ian Carr, Andy Cutting, and Ewan Vernal, other renowned folk names such as Julie Fowlis, Jim Causley and John Tams, and even a smattering of pop stars in the shapes of Roddy Woomble and Graham Coxon. All in all twelve top-class musicians were snugly fitted onto the stage of the Quays Theatre and enthusiastically welcomed by a near-full house.
The first half of the concert was a session of 'floor spots' by members of the ensemble. The constant coming and going of personnel made the first half (and indeed some parts of the second half) a little bitty and lacking in stagecraft, but there were some glittering gems on offer. After a rousing initial tune set by the whole band, Emma Reid played a spellbinding fiddle solo combining a complex polska with a open-string-heavy jig; Jim Causley sang a richly melancholy Ralph McTell song (no, not that one); and John Tams, despite battling a combination of man-flu and stage-fright, sang a beautiful version of his own 'Hold Back The Tide' with a rich textural backing from the band. The only [literally] off note was Graham Coxon, who Foghorn Leghorned his way through an otherwise faithful cover of the Shirley Collins/Albion Band arrangement of 'Just As The Tide Was A-Flowing' whilst never getting much closer than a semitone to the rest of the band, or indeed showing the fainted sign of interest in the proceedings; but he none the less seemed to delight a small vocal contingent of his fans, whilst everyone else applauded the fact that he'd finished and the real musicians could start playing again.
The second half was the 'Under One Sky' suite itself, and displayed all of the sonorous and complex arrangements you would expect from a John McCusker piece. Songs from Messrs Fowlis, Tams, Causley, Woomble and Coxon (the latter slightly improved from his first-half showing) were all given arrangements, by turns lush and sensitive. The stand-out song for me was Jim Causley's, written by John Tams and beautifully and emotionally delivered.
The instrumental forces at McCusker's disposal were used to great, varied, and sumptuous effect: I have failed to mention the splendid presence of piper and flutist Iain MacDonald, and also top marks to the stand-in percussionist [name, sadly, missed/forgotten] who skilfully and sensitively drove the complex arrangements whilst discreetly reading some parts from sheet music and following Ian Carr's guidance through the rest. The soundscape was very similar to that heard on John McCusker's CDs (and possibly most widely known through his erstwhile arrangements for Kate Rusby); the freedom of having longer instrumental sections, plus the sheer amount of willing musical talent available to play the pieces, took the music to new peaks of excitement and beauty that words alone cannot capture. Hopefully the CD, on sale on the night (but as-yet unplayed) and not officially released until March *will* capture some of those heights!
Criticisms? As mentioned, Graham Coxon seemed out of place and rather out of his depth, whilst Roddy Woomble also seemed a little detached: however I must admit that a section of the audience seemed to regard their contributions as the highlights and presumably got bored during the John McCusker bits. The constant comings and goings were rather distracting at times, especially in the middle of some of the longer numbers, and a bit more attention to presentation wouldn't have gone amiss - only the two Johns seemed comfortable interacting with the audience, and we didn't get a single recipe from Andy Cutting. From where we were sitting, dead centre and near the front, the wind instruments seemed a little low in the mix and the guitars a little high, but that could well be partly my personal wind instrument bias / preference; apart from a brief pre-concert burst of feedback the sound was very clear, well-balanced, sympathetic to the wide range of instruments on stage, and in that lovely live concert volume range where it's loud but not overpowering.
All minor points which in no way take away from a top-rate evening of music and musicianship.
So good, in fact, that I think I may even have enjoyed it, in its own way, more than the recent roof-raising barn-storming all-conquering resistance-is-futile Bellowhead gig in Buxton.
See the Under One Sky tour if you can on the few remaining dates, or hope that the experience is repeated in the future!
Originally commissioned by the Cambridge Folk Festival and Celtic Connections, the piece went so well that it is currently on a short tour with much the same cast-list: regular McCusker collaborators such as Ian Carr, Andy Cutting, and Ewan Vernal, other renowned folk names such as Julie Fowlis, Jim Causley and John Tams, and even a smattering of pop stars in the shapes of Roddy Woomble and Graham Coxon. All in all twelve top-class musicians were snugly fitted onto the stage of the Quays Theatre and enthusiastically welcomed by a near-full house.
The first half of the concert was a session of 'floor spots' by members of the ensemble. The constant coming and going of personnel made the first half (and indeed some parts of the second half) a little bitty and lacking in stagecraft, but there were some glittering gems on offer. After a rousing initial tune set by the whole band, Emma Reid played a spellbinding fiddle solo combining a complex polska with a open-string-heavy jig; Jim Causley sang a richly melancholy Ralph McTell song (no, not that one); and John Tams, despite battling a combination of man-flu and stage-fright, sang a beautiful version of his own 'Hold Back The Tide' with a rich textural backing from the band. The only [literally] off note was Graham Coxon, who Foghorn Leghorned his way through an otherwise faithful cover of the Shirley Collins/Albion Band arrangement of 'Just As The Tide Was A-Flowing' whilst never getting much closer than a semitone to the rest of the band, or indeed showing the fainted sign of interest in the proceedings; but he none the less seemed to delight a small vocal contingent of his fans, whilst everyone else applauded the fact that he'd finished and the real musicians could start playing again.
The second half was the 'Under One Sky' suite itself, and displayed all of the sonorous and complex arrangements you would expect from a John McCusker piece. Songs from Messrs Fowlis, Tams, Causley, Woomble and Coxon (the latter slightly improved from his first-half showing) were all given arrangements, by turns lush and sensitive. The stand-out song for me was Jim Causley's, written by John Tams and beautifully and emotionally delivered.
The instrumental forces at McCusker's disposal were used to great, varied, and sumptuous effect: I have failed to mention the splendid presence of piper and flutist Iain MacDonald, and also top marks to the stand-in percussionist [name, sadly, missed/forgotten] who skilfully and sensitively drove the complex arrangements whilst discreetly reading some parts from sheet music and following Ian Carr's guidance through the rest. The soundscape was very similar to that heard on John McCusker's CDs (and possibly most widely known through his erstwhile arrangements for Kate Rusby); the freedom of having longer instrumental sections, plus the sheer amount of willing musical talent available to play the pieces, took the music to new peaks of excitement and beauty that words alone cannot capture. Hopefully the CD, on sale on the night (but as-yet unplayed) and not officially released until March *will* capture some of those heights!
Criticisms? As mentioned, Graham Coxon seemed out of place and rather out of his depth, whilst Roddy Woomble also seemed a little detached: however I must admit that a section of the audience seemed to regard their contributions as the highlights and presumably got bored during the John McCusker bits. The constant comings and goings were rather distracting at times, especially in the middle of some of the longer numbers, and a bit more attention to presentation wouldn't have gone amiss - only the two Johns seemed comfortable interacting with the audience, and we didn't get a single recipe from Andy Cutting. From where we were sitting, dead centre and near the front, the wind instruments seemed a little low in the mix and the guitars a little high, but that could well be partly my personal wind instrument bias / preference; apart from a brief pre-concert burst of feedback the sound was very clear, well-balanced, sympathetic to the wide range of instruments on stage, and in that lovely live concert volume range where it's loud but not overpowering.
All minor points which in no way take away from a top-rate evening of music and musicianship.
So good, in fact, that I think I may even have enjoyed it, in its own way, more than the recent roof-raising barn-storming all-conquering resistance-is-futile Bellowhead gig in Buxton.
See the Under One Sky tour if you can on the few remaining dates, or hope that the experience is repeated in the future!
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