Hey the gay and the grinding
Mar. 12th, 2023 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustToday is durham_rambler's birthday. We went out for fish and chips for lunch at the Glass Centre in Sunderland, and while we were there caught the last day of an exhibition I will have more to say about soon (I hope).
It was only at the end of last week that we cashed in his Christmas present, and went to see Martin Carthy at the Old Cinema Launderette. I hadn't been at all confident that this would happen, because of the snow, which was not heavy, but persistent. Each day we woke to a world of whiteness, gleaming in the sunshine, which melted the thin blanket as the day progressed. And in fact we had no problem getting to the Launderette, and nor did Martin Carthy (hooray!), though we had a cold wait outside for the doors to open (last time they let the audience in while the sound check was ongoing). More snow fell during the gig - and even more overnight, so that Friday morning was the snowiest yet: our morning paper was stuck somwhere on the M62. But we made it to a public meeting with our MP that afternoon.
I can save myself quite a bit of repetition by referring anyone who wants to know to what I wrote about last year's Launderette gig: same generous helping of much the same repertoire, same memory problems. Not so much, I thought, that he didn't remember the words as that he did remember them and couldn't stop them welling up before their time - which would explain why he had particular problems with Scarborough Fair. The occasional glitches on the guitar he seemed to take in his stride, with the odd "Upsadaisy!" but losing the words derailed him, and he abandoned more than one song, including The Bows of London with which he had intended to end. Instead we got The Trees they do Grow High, which is apparently not a song to finish with - I don't know why.
Put that aside, and it was a great gig. He's still a spellbinding storyteller, in speech and song alike. How can he grip his audience with a narrative of which they already know every word and every note? Still has that distinctive guitar sound, too. Even that sound check, filtering out to a chilly crowd, was unmistakable, that emphatic downstroke... If anything, I thought the guitar got better as the evening went on, it seemed to come into focus - unless I was losing focus, of course, there's always that.
I enjoyed the support act, too - which is by no means always the case. Catch the Sparrow is a yong woman who came from the Netherlands to study folk music at Newcastle: search for information and you'll find words like 'delicate', 'featherlight', 'sensitive': despite which, I enjoyed both her folk material and her own compositions (a piece of Child ballad fan-fic, a 'female cabin boy' with a twist called "Crossing") none of which I can find right now.
durham_rambler's birthday. We went out for fish and chips for lunch at the Glass Centre in Sunderland, and while we were there caught the last day of an exhibition I will have more to say about soon (I hope).It was only at the end of last week that we cashed in his Christmas present, and went to see Martin Carthy at the Old Cinema Launderette. I hadn't been at all confident that this would happen, because of the snow, which was not heavy, but persistent. Each day we woke to a world of whiteness, gleaming in the sunshine, which melted the thin blanket as the day progressed. And in fact we had no problem getting to the Launderette, and nor did Martin Carthy (hooray!), though we had a cold wait outside for the doors to open (last time they let the audience in while the sound check was ongoing). More snow fell during the gig - and even more overnight, so that Friday morning was the snowiest yet: our morning paper was stuck somwhere on the M62. But we made it to a public meeting with our MP that afternoon.
I can save myself quite a bit of repetition by referring anyone who wants to know to what I wrote about last year's Launderette gig: same generous helping of much the same repertoire, same memory problems. Not so much, I thought, that he didn't remember the words as that he did remember them and couldn't stop them welling up before their time - which would explain why he had particular problems with Scarborough Fair. The occasional glitches on the guitar he seemed to take in his stride, with the odd "Upsadaisy!" but losing the words derailed him, and he abandoned more than one song, including The Bows of London with which he had intended to end. Instead we got The Trees they do Grow High, which is apparently not a song to finish with - I don't know why.
Put that aside, and it was a great gig. He's still a spellbinding storyteller, in speech and song alike. How can he grip his audience with a narrative of which they already know every word and every note? Still has that distinctive guitar sound, too. Even that sound check, filtering out to a chilly crowd, was unmistakable, that emphatic downstroke... If anything, I thought the guitar got better as the evening went on, it seemed to come into focus - unless I was losing focus, of course, there's always that.
I enjoyed the support act, too - which is by no means always the case. Catch the Sparrow is a yong woman who came from the Netherlands to study folk music at Newcastle: search for information and you'll find words like 'delicate', 'featherlight', 'sensitive': despite which, I enjoyed both her folk material and her own compositions (a piece of Child ballad fan-fic, a 'female cabin boy' with a twist called "Crossing") none of which I can find right now.
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Date: 2023-03-18 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-19 11:36 am (UTC)