Third time lucky
Dec. 1st, 2024 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustHad things gone according to plan, we would have been in Middlesbrough last night to hear Robb Johnson with the Acoustic Irregulars. Things being what they are, the gig was cancelled, through no fault of the organisers (an earlier gig had fallen through, and the travel was no longer affordable). Of the three recent gigs we had booked at Toft House ("The Home of Unpopular Music"), this was the second to be cancelled: also not their fault that Pete Atkin had covid and has rescheduled for the spring. So last Saturday we were taking nothing for granted, eyeing the weather nervously: there was a thin blanket of snow over Durham, and threats of worse elsewhere...
The good news is that we had a very enjoyable evening with the Coal Porters. Beyond our street, the roads were clear, and once across the river there was no snow to be seen; the band appear to have travelled without incident too, from the village near Peebles where they had played the previous night. The internet informs me that the Coal Porters disbanded in 2018, but it doesn't seem to have cramped their style. If anything, there was the feeling of old friends with other projrcts getting together to have fun without long-term commitment. I liked vocalist Neil Robert Herd's explanation that "we have been described as 'alt-bluegrass'": it doesn't disown a perfectly reasonable description (banjo! mandolin! Bill Monroe song! high speed!) but nor does it actually endorse it. I also appreciated the costumes: three men in suits, bassist in teddy-boy drapes, fiddler Kerenza Peacock in a cotton print dress (but the print was of "some of my favourite feminists") and silver sparkly boots: that's what I'd call making an effort.
I can't find anything on YouTube which conveys the flavour of the performance. But here's what they did for their obligatory encore (Sid Griffin was prepared to hold forth at some length on this topic):
Post-encore, we also had an audience-participation version of Dylan's You ain't going nowhere: and then we came home. I wasn't tempted to buy a CD, but I'd go back for more of the live performance.
The good news is that we had a very enjoyable evening with the Coal Porters. Beyond our street, the roads were clear, and once across the river there was no snow to be seen; the band appear to have travelled without incident too, from the village near Peebles where they had played the previous night. The internet informs me that the Coal Porters disbanded in 2018, but it doesn't seem to have cramped their style. If anything, there was the feeling of old friends with other projrcts getting together to have fun without long-term commitment. I liked vocalist Neil Robert Herd's explanation that "we have been described as 'alt-bluegrass'": it doesn't disown a perfectly reasonable description (banjo! mandolin! Bill Monroe song! high speed!) but nor does it actually endorse it. I also appreciated the costumes: three men in suits, bassist in teddy-boy drapes, fiddler Kerenza Peacock in a cotton print dress (but the print was of "some of my favourite feminists") and silver sparkly boots: that's what I'd call making an effort.
I can't find anything on YouTube which conveys the flavour of the performance. But here's what they did for their obligatory encore (Sid Griffin was prepared to hold forth at some length on this topic):
Post-encore, we also had an audience-participation version of Dylan's You ain't going nowhere: and then we came home. I wasn't tempted to buy a CD, but I'd go back for more of the live performance.
