GIG REVIEWS
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GIG REVIEWS |
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CANTERBURY FAYRE
21st - 23rd AUGUST 2003 www.vanguard-online.co.uk Canterbury Fayre has been a well kept secret for years. A teeny tiny festival, set in the green and pleasant surroundings of Mount Ephraim stately home near Faversham, Kent. Frequented by hippies and relics of the 'Canterbury Scene', it has been the sort of festival where you can take toddlers and know they're not going to get trampled. This year was a bit of a breakthrough though, the biggest crowds they have ever had and probably more than they can cope with again, a change of venue was expected. By Saturday, 8,000 had arrived. This is what I guess Glastonbury might once have been - a few thousand gentle people having a good time. No rock favourites playing but enough quality acts that there is lots you want to check out. I've rarely seen so much tie dye all in one place and, combined with all the stalls selling herbal ecstacy and incense, it has more than a whiff of Goa about it. Just as well the insence is there - there are no showers and things get a bit honky for those not brave enough to get a public hose down. Hare Krishnas abound and I spend pleasant hours in their tent doing the chanty dance. A victim of their own success, the organisers can needed to keep the numbers down to keep the audience that makes this such a personal and gentle event. At the same time they needed to grow the event to meet costs. It seems that the organisers overstretched themselves as current news from the promoters is that the event has folded due to insufficient ticket sales. This seems unlikely as their numbers were very close to what they were licensed for. More likely is that, with three stages, running costs overtook capacity. It's a real shame; as a smaller event this had more than enough appeal to become a permanent fixture. Things don't have to be huge to be successful; here the appeal was the small size. Bands reviewed at the weekend included: John Otway, Deborah Bonham, The Incredible String Band, Roy Harper, Jackie Leven, The Willard Grant Conspiracy, The Cosmic Rough Riders, Ratdog, The Buzzcocks, Arthur Lee and Love. John Otway and The Big Band John Otway is what the English like to call 'a character'. That is to say; so tapped as to be living a dream of eccentricity on behalf of those unwilling to lose the dream of a comfy suburban lifestyle. He's fifty and been touring almost constantly since his early twenties. Having settled for a life of cult obscurity after his hit single (Really Free) in 1977, a co-ordinated internet campaign by fans brought him a second hit last year with Bunsen Burner. A remarkable number of people here have heard of John Otway but few know what they are about to experience when he opens the second day of the festival. Bouncing out onto stage Otway's skinny frame jumps up and down as he sings Really Free. Then, explaining that, in the days of vinyl, B-sides sold as many copies as A-sides, he does the B-side. Beware Of The Flowers. This is the song that came seventh in a BBC internet poll of the last millenium's favourite lyrics. Since when, one hopes, internet security has been tightened up.... He bowls on with Delilah (yup, the Tom Jones song). This hit 186 off the back of a Weetabix ad. 'She saw the spoon in my hand and she laughed no more...' Otway is wearing a shit eating grin and twatting the microphone with a spoon. He's a cabaret act masquerading as a rock act. He is gleeful, anecdotal, funny and life-enhancing. Rolf Harris' Two Little Boys is demolished next in a punked up version. Bunsen Burner (the second hit) whizzes by in a blur of the worst chemistry puns in the world. House Of The Rising Sun gets a pasting too. The twist on this is that some of the crowd know a heckle for every line and the whole thing is a raucous pantomime. This appears to be the real thing - a bunch of mates having a good time, unplugging each other's mic cords etc. The Osmonds' Crazy Horses lets John prat about with his Theremin. The act rounds up with a set of acrobatics performed to Bachman Turner Overdrive's You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet. People around me are laughing, clapping and shouting encouragement. John Otway is a living treasure. For the next two days people are telling me how good Otway was. The good news is he tours the whole country regularly. Do an internet search and he's probably playing your local soon. Deborah Bonham Deborah Bonham has a hard-rocking blues voice but no idea what to do with it. It's kind of a cross between Suzi Quatro, Joan Osbourne and a twist of Janis Joplin and utterly wasted. There is a sense of routine mundanity about this festival set that belies any attempt at injecting soul. There is such a paucity of feeling that even she feels it and tries to draw sympathy from the crowd by talking about her brother - John Bonham, Led Zeppelin drug casualty. Proof that talent is not routinely genetic. The Incredible String Band 'You've probably guessed we're a little bit sixties. This one is from 1974 - that's as recent as we get.' The Incredible String Band on this occasion are a three piece playing violin, keyboards, indian squeeze box and acoustic guitar. . And what we get is stringed (hey, that's a surprise) acoustic folky hippy stuff. I once found an Incredible String Band tape under the seat of an old car I'd bought. I p[layed it through and it was strangely horrible yet compelling. Often a little off-kilter or off-tune, it had a compellingly mad quality to it. The ISB today is a pleasant and competent festival band likely to have you shuffling foot to foot or, if you are fifty-something and still in ethnic wear, cheering politely. Roy Harper Roy Harper is another hippy legend, revered by those in the know, unknown except in name to the rest of us. Tonight he looks dapper but severe in white shirt, white shoes, white trousers and a grey beard. He sets up double contra-strums with his son on two acoustic guitares. Roy takes his music desperately seriously with philosophy lectures disguised as songs. He keeps asking for changes in the monitor mix until the pee'd off sound engineer whacks in a load of echo to show him who holds the knobs. Roy makes no allowances for a festival audience, beginninghis slot with a mini lecture on the history of the concept of Eden. This sets a pattern and songs are interspersed with philosophy talks. The intentness cuts both ways; the crowd is rapt, having snoozed through the last act yet inspiring heckles from people like me with too much cider in them. At one point he announces 'I'm not a miserable fucker'. Oh yes you are! 'I'm just asking a series of positive questions. Eventually all becomes clear when he breaks off to ask the crowd if they are all sloping sideways then interrupts himself again to comment on the dragonflies around his head. Smoke one for me, Roy. Jackie Leven. 23rd August 2003. Jackie Leven is playing a little tent to a rivetted audience. Leven's music harnesses the deep melancholies that lie in Celtic music. Something that appeals to men who find miserable music makes them happy. I find his songs brush on chords inside me that I am normally unaware of. With a rich acoustic guitar technique accompanied by his amplified foot-taps, Jacle Leven is not a pretty sight. Torn denim shirt, shorts and a sweaty drinkgut. This body holds a voice that, whilst not what it was back when he fronted Doll By Doll, is a tuned instrument. Leven sings with continual care and attention, producing exactly what he wants. Here he was his avuncular self - mixing his strongest songs with some filthy tales to set us at our ease. He'll have won some converts. Willard Grant Conspiracy. 23rd August 2003. Playing the solar-powered acoustic tent and competing against the likes of Robert Plant, they still manage to get a crowd. They are quite a sight, leader set solid in the centre, flanked by gorgeous steel string bending twangy guitar, streamline electric stand up bass plus keys and drums. The songs swing along in a gloomy beauty, tinged with sadness, proving forms for the band to reach into a grounded and rich level of interplay. The naked bass plucks, the violin stretches and scratches, keys add colour and the guitar, oh the guitar, it twangs, angers, weeps and claws. This is a rock band that listen to each other and play fascinating and intense jams. Add to that a self-deprecating sense of humour in amongst the songs about murder and suffering and you have a potent combination. By the end the largely seated audience was swaying gently, eyes closed, singing gently to ballads with titles like 'The Suffering Song'.... The Cosmic Rough Riders. 24th August 2003. Opening up the afternoon, the Cosmic Rough Riders face an audience of blissed out hippy type folk, many busting to hear Ratdog (a spin-off from The Grateful Dead). A tough job to do and the Rough Riders just get on with the job. 'It couldn't get much more chilled' announces their frontman and he's right. They get right on with their Byrds / Teenage Fanclub guitar rock that the Scots are so adept at. If it weren't for the accents they could have flown in from West Coast USA. Real guitars, real harmonies, gentle melodies. Their musical palette reaches from there to psychedelic-tinged rockers and a tip of the battered Stetson to Neil Young with Country Home, a song about ageing cars that'll only start on a hill. A stagefront crowd slowly gathers and is persuaded, oh so gently, by the Cosmic's brand of country rock. Ratdog. 24th August 2003. It must be strange to be Bob Weir - last week he was playing stadiums with The Dead - a re-incarnation of The Grateful Dead - this week he's touring the UK, playing to crowds of three to six hundred. Last night he played to Deadheads in Bilston, near Birmingham, today he's playing support to Love and The Buzzcocks. The crowd is a mix of the festival curious and the tie-dyed Heads, many following the band round their five dates in England. And it's worth the trip - this band plays different sets every night and normally plays a tour this size without repeating more than a couple of songs. Now, this festival has more tie-dyed adults and tie-dyed kids than I've seen for a long time. And down here I even hear people talking openly about Prog Rock as if there is nothing shameful in it;) So, what to expect from the rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of The Grateful Dead? Well;- long songs and lots of exploration. Songs veer towards Prog but stretch out into improvised jams that find their way into extended medleys. It's the sort of thing that surprises on the sonic journey and sends plenty into grooving hippy dances (myself included). Cleverly, they played plenty of stuff that hippies of a certain age might know but took it out on an exploration. A lengthy Terrapin Station turned into a speedy jam before flipping into dub reggae. I had the sensation the band didn't know where they were going all the time and were leading each other into new ideas. Each new twist had the faithful grinning wildly and jumping around. And it wasn't all grey hairs - there was a young Bradford lass dancing next to me thrilled to bits to be hearing this stuff. The set was made up of Grateful Dead songs, a few covers and a Rtadog original. But the songs aren't the point, and just as well - there are no 'greatest hits' to trot out, the point is the new music that they create each night. The songs are a launch pad for bursts of new musical ground covered. And its thrilling in effect. Bob Weir likes to play 'sandwiches' - he'll start a song, play it for a bit, start something else, come back to the original, head off again, return, and so on. Each return bringing shouts of recognition from the audience. They played for two hours and most of the songs were melded into each other through spot-on jamming sequences. Mark Karan, the lead guitar ripped liquid scales off his guitar - he has a very fluid and lyrical tone with minimal levels of the normal rock guitar 'look at me' wankery. Keyboards were extremely tight, as were the drums and the saxophonist managed to add colour without drowning people out. A really joyous occasion and a good dance had by many. It is a puzzle what Ratdog are doing over here, they can't be making any money, but I'm glad they were here. Perhaps they just like playing music! Incidentally - this is a band that allows audience taping and non-profit of its shows - if anyone wants to hear this one and sends me a couple of CDRs, I'll copy it for them. E-mail is ross at the site address. Buzzcocks Back together and writing new stuff still, this set is largely devoted too all the old stuff I love. To name but the first six songs: Boredom, Fast Cars, I Don't Mind, Autonomy, Oh Shit!, Harmony In My Head. Greatest hit stuff and played with energy and verve. Rocket-speed drumming behind the jovially blokey pair of Pete Shelly and Steve Diggle. Diggle strikes rock poses, guitar aloft, thrusting his Telecaster forward. He seems to be seventeen again and thrilled to be living a boy's dream of rock music. Shelly does his trademarked head cocked sideways confidential aside stance. The bassist affects boredom in a splendidly rockist way. The Buzzcocks wrote about my life. When I was teenaged they seemed to be charting every emotional up and down for me (Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With) and here they are still reminding me what it is to be sixteen. Now, what would be special is if they could pull it off again and chart the heart's progress towards forty, but they seem fated to fade into a nostalgia act, albeit one of the best. Love Since his release from prison Arthur Lee has been building a solid reputation again as a gigging musician. Responsible for one of the best rock albums ever - Forever Changes, Arthur has a place already in pop's pantheon for quirky and strangely deep lyrics allied with awesome tunes (check out And More Again... for a sample). Here he plays with a band that is the old Love in name only but has been together a couple of years. Long enough to have a solid rapport and to know each other well enough for Mike Randall, the lead guitar to rip out sheaves of electric notes in a Hendrix style. Some of the set is with the band and some is supplemented by a small orchestra. A rotating psychedelic light show adds to the sixties flavour. Arthur is an imposing figure - lanky and irrepressibly cool, belying every one of the years that he must by now have accumulated. He struts up the stage, pausing to arch his back, to reach up, to shake his clasped tambourine like some troubadour. Somehow ageless since you can't see his hair under a tightly tied bandanna, itself under a hat. Guitar solos, classic melodies and rock-outs follow, each capped by a cool and well-pleased grin from Arthur. He owns the stage and knows it, justifiably proud of his back catalogue, however old it is. A final honourable mention for the rhythm guitarist, just for having a cool name, Rusty Squeezebox. |