Since we learned a new act to drive sorrows away
This has been a good week for seeing well-known people in unusual settings doing interesting things.
On Friday, d_floorlandmine and I took ourselves off to the Barbican to see Bright Phoebus Revisited.
A bit of backstory required here - Bright Phoebus was a seminal modern folk album released in 1972 by The Watersons and friends. The songs were written mostly by Mike and Lal Waterson, with a variety of influences including traditional ballads, music hall, ragtime and psychedelia. Despite winning critical acclaim it was a small pressing, with the added complication that a significant number of the disks had the spindle holes misaligned, so couldn't be played. The album was deleted and the rights got sold on several times - who currently has them seems to be a bit murky.
Mike & Lal Waterson have both passed on now, but the surviving members of the ever-expanding Waterson & Carthy musical clan (spurred on by Lal's daughter Marry) put their collective heads together and decided to try to revive the songs from the album (as well as some 'lost' songs that were recorded but didn't make the final cut) in a series of concerts, with the surviving original artists (Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson and Bob Davenport) ably assisted by the younger family members as well as friends and collaborators.
All of which meant that on Friday night we got to see English folk royalty performing in the massive Barbican Hall with the same easy grace and gentle humour as if they were in their own front room, with contributions from Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. So much talent was crammed onto that stage that stage hands kept having to find extra chairs as nobody wanted to leave the stage between 'their' songs in case they missed anything! It was an utterly amazing experience to hear these beautiful songs lifted out of obscurity, dusted off and given new life - and we were lucky enough to have scored front row seats for the show!
Then yesterday it was off to Central Hall in Westminster to hear Neil Gaiman read through his new children's book, Fortunately The Milk. I arrived at the venue (a massive Victorian Methodist hall near Parliament Square, which was also the venue for the first ever meeting of the UN, fact fans!) at 5.45 to find the queue already stretching almost around all four sides of the building, and staked our spot. By the time we made it into the door (chatting and waving to friends in the queue on the way) it had looped around another twice - it took about an hour from the doors opening to get everyone in!
Neil had promised '... and friends', and he has some great friends. First up was the compere, comedian and guitarist for The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Andrew O'Neill. He did some audience participation warm up, some jokes, and as it was a reading of a children's book, a particularly child-friendly shaggy dog story about what happens if you undo your bellybutton. Next up was Tim Smith - formerly known as TV Smith, singer with 70s punk band The Adverts (Gary Gilmour's Eyes, etc), who did a folky number about fishing ("Do punks turn into folkies when they get old?", asked Simon. "Yes. If you slow punk down, it's basically folk anyway."), and then introduced a friend of his to help him out on the next song. Tom Robinson. There is something about an audience cheering two 60-year-old blokes playing guitar and doing high-kicks that is both bizarre and endearing. Then it was time for the main event. Neil and illustrator Chris Riddell took to the stage and introduced the book, and then Neil read while Chris sketched along on a overhead projector. More '...and friends' were drafted in to take the parts of characters in the book, with Mitch Benn contributing a piratical song, Andrew O'Neill as a particularly vile vampire, a few other people I didn't know, then Lenny Henry turning up towards the end to play the part of a space traveller. The whole thing was brilliant, funny, charming and just a little bit shambolic, in the best possible way.
Then Amanda Palmer came on and sang a song about her ukelele. Least said, soonest mended.
On Friday, d_floorlandmine and I took ourselves off to the Barbican to see Bright Phoebus Revisited.
A bit of backstory required here - Bright Phoebus was a seminal modern folk album released in 1972 by The Watersons and friends. The songs were written mostly by Mike and Lal Waterson, with a variety of influences including traditional ballads, music hall, ragtime and psychedelia. Despite winning critical acclaim it was a small pressing, with the added complication that a significant number of the disks had the spindle holes misaligned, so couldn't be played. The album was deleted and the rights got sold on several times - who currently has them seems to be a bit murky.
Mike & Lal Waterson have both passed on now, but the surviving members of the ever-expanding Waterson & Carthy musical clan (spurred on by Lal's daughter Marry) put their collective heads together and decided to try to revive the songs from the album (as well as some 'lost' songs that were recorded but didn't make the final cut) in a series of concerts, with the surviving original artists (Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson and Bob Davenport) ably assisted by the younger family members as well as friends and collaborators.
All of which meant that on Friday night we got to see English folk royalty performing in the massive Barbican Hall with the same easy grace and gentle humour as if they were in their own front room, with contributions from Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. So much talent was crammed onto that stage that stage hands kept having to find extra chairs as nobody wanted to leave the stage between 'their' songs in case they missed anything! It was an utterly amazing experience to hear these beautiful songs lifted out of obscurity, dusted off and given new life - and we were lucky enough to have scored front row seats for the show!
Then yesterday it was off to Central Hall in Westminster to hear Neil Gaiman read through his new children's book, Fortunately The Milk. I arrived at the venue (a massive Victorian Methodist hall near Parliament Square, which was also the venue for the first ever meeting of the UN, fact fans!) at 5.45 to find the queue already stretching almost around all four sides of the building, and staked our spot. By the time we made it into the door (chatting and waving to friends in the queue on the way) it had looped around another twice - it took about an hour from the doors opening to get everyone in!
Neil had promised '... and friends', and he has some great friends. First up was the compere, comedian and guitarist for The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Andrew O'Neill. He did some audience participation warm up, some jokes, and as it was a reading of a children's book, a particularly child-friendly shaggy dog story about what happens if you undo your bellybutton. Next up was Tim Smith - formerly known as TV Smith, singer with 70s punk band The Adverts (Gary Gilmour's Eyes, etc), who did a folky number about fishing ("Do punks turn into folkies when they get old?", asked Simon. "Yes. If you slow punk down, it's basically folk anyway."), and then introduced a friend of his to help him out on the next song. Tom Robinson. There is something about an audience cheering two 60-year-old blokes playing guitar and doing high-kicks that is both bizarre and endearing. Then it was time for the main event. Neil and illustrator Chris Riddell took to the stage and introduced the book, and then Neil read while Chris sketched along on a overhead projector. More '...and friends' were drafted in to take the parts of characters in the book, with Mitch Benn contributing a piratical song, Andrew O'Neill as a particularly vile vampire, a few other people I didn't know, then Lenny Henry turning up towards the end to play the part of a space traveller. The whole thing was brilliant, funny, charming and just a little bit shambolic, in the best possible way.
Then Amanda Palmer came on and sang a song about her ukelele. Least said, soonest mended.