John and Jonny at the Gala
Nov. 14th, 2008 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustOne of the benefits of being a 'Friend' of the local theatre is that occasionally you are offered cheap tickets to shows that aren't selling all that well. As benefits go, this one is probably less beneficial than the reduction on the bar prices: mostly the prices are not sufficiently reduced to tempt me, or the offers are for things I really don't want to see at any price. But last night's show offered us a guitarist we'd never heard of - but who has, according to the blurb, worked with several guitarists we have more than heard of - at a price which is less than we get charged at folk clubs these days. Had to be worth a try.
So: John Smith is a genuinely impressive guitarist, dramatic, inventive and distinctive. Unfortunately, his singing style is equally individual, but in a way that didn't work for me. I'd call it mannered; and the effect of combining it with mostly his own material was that each song sounded much like the last. The one that stood out for me was the one he did, in fact, save till last - and here he is on YouTube singing Winter. (That's interesting - the vocals are much clearer than what we heard last night).
The warm-up act*, though, was a lot of fun: Jonny Kearney and a couple of friends, one of whom played double bass, the other - who might have been called Lucy - singing and playing saw and violin. They weren't slick - to the extent that I only know Jonny Kearney's name because of the running time notice taped by the door - but they were interesting, each song they sang was unlike the last, and I'd happily go and hear them again. And also MySpace's music seems to be broken, there are three of last night's songs on AmazingTunes. Don't miss Stand-up Show.
*I have a whole other rant about gigs where the warm-up act plays for 20 minutes, and you then get a twenty minute interval before the main act comes on for a single long set. What's that about? Warming you up, and then letting you cool down again?
So: John Smith is a genuinely impressive guitarist, dramatic, inventive and distinctive. Unfortunately, his singing style is equally individual, but in a way that didn't work for me. I'd call it mannered; and the effect of combining it with mostly his own material was that each song sounded much like the last. The one that stood out for me was the one he did, in fact, save till last - and here he is on YouTube singing Winter. (That's interesting - the vocals are much clearer than what we heard last night).
The warm-up act*, though, was a lot of fun: Jonny Kearney and a couple of friends, one of whom played double bass, the other - who might have been called Lucy - singing and playing saw and violin. They weren't slick - to the extent that I only know Jonny Kearney's name because of the running time notice taped by the door - but they were interesting, each song they sang was unlike the last, and I'd happily go and hear them again. And also MySpace's music seems to be broken, there are three of last night's songs on AmazingTunes. Don't miss Stand-up Show.
*I have a whole other rant about gigs where the warm-up act plays for 20 minutes, and you then get a twenty minute interval before the main act comes on for a single long set. What's that about? Warming you up, and then letting you cool down again?
