Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Into the Mystic at the Barbican
Into The Mystic: Bert Jansch, King Creosote, Adem, Max Richter, Mike Heron, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan
The Barbican, Saturday 4 February 2006
The bumper night of folk starts on a glorious swooning high when Bert Jansch opens with Blackwaterside. Jansch is the folk giant from Glasgow who's known for his influence on others - Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Marr. I start to feel foolish because I don't know enough about guitars to know how good he is, but then I know it feels good to watch him play and hear how beautiful the songs are.
King Creosote must be a bit scared coming on after Jansch, but their strain of folk is fresh and honest enough to earn its own place. Favourite Girl sees a few heads resting on shoulders around the hall. Yeuch, but ahh.
Adem comes right out and says how scary it is to follow two acts as strong as those. As if to underline the point, he and the band spend a few minutes tinkering and scurrying and "just mic-ing the snare" as the drummer sheepishly explains. Adem usually leaves me feeling a bit blank, but not this time. The set finishes with There Will Always Be ('..My door, it will always be open. There will always be lights on, there will always be room at my table for you...") and sweet sighs are audible from the crowd.
I miss the start of the second half but I don't mind. This is a marathon folky feast and I'm happy to leave out the Max Richter course. Mike Heron, he of the wondrous Incredible String Band, does a stint with his daughter, which is ever so slightly cringy but so open-hearted that you can't be mean about it. His songs are warm celebrations (Morning Stars, You Get Brighter) and anyway, from here on, everyone starts playing with everyone else and I love it when that happens.
Vetiver join Mike Heron on stage, although as far as I can tell, it's some combination of Vetiver, Espers and Currituck Co (Kevin Barker, Otto Hauser and another cute boy who looks lanky and beardy like they do. It's the folk Hanson!). I have yet to work out who's who, and the hairiness doesn't help. Then Vetiver (or whoever they are...) have the stage to themselves for a couple of songs (including a gorgeous version of Black is the Colour, influenced by both John Fahey and Nina Simone's arrangements, if I remember Barker’s intro rightly. Vetiver appreciate their ancestors).
And then, up comes the star of the show: Vashti Bunyan. The woman who made a record with Andrew Loog Oldham in 1970 then disappeared up to Scotland. Almost 40 years later, with a little help from a couple of things that didn't exist when she started out - Devendra Banhart and the internet - she has become something like the godmother of folk. That 1970 record, Just Another Diamond Day, was re-released in 2000. Her second album, Lookaftering, came out last year and has been warming up my iPod for the past few weeks. As well as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, the new album features a few of the musicians here tonight, including Max Richter, Adem, Kevin Barker and Otto Hauser. After a few songs, Bunyan is joined on stage by all of them, and Kieran Hebden trundles out, too. The songs are beautiful. She opens with Hidden ("This is not a folk song," she warns us. "It's a love song.") then Diamond Day, Here Before and Rainbow River, all delicate, dark songs made even more delicate and dark by her voice, which is soft and steely at the same time. She's very, very nervous though, and it's a shame you can't imagine her ever saying boo to a goose. According to her website, Vashti Bunyan never sang with her guitar in front of an audience until she played on Later With Jools Holland last November, and so to be headlining in front of around 2000 people sitting quietly in their seats at the Barbican must be pretty terrifying.
After the show, down in one of the Barbican's strange 'is it a room, is it a hallway?' areas, Circulus play their own set. I doubt Circulus are terrified of anything. They're dressed in medieval capes and huge sleeves (I might buy a big felt hat as a result of seeing them), there's a scent of patchouli in the air, and they play dirty, folky, frotting-with-the-pagans songs for a fantastic hour or more. When head loon Michael Tyack explains why we actually are all made of sunlight as he introduces My Body Is Made Of Sunlight, I am utterly convinced.
The Barbican, Saturday 4 February 2006
The bumper night of folk starts on a glorious swooning high when Bert Jansch opens with Blackwaterside. Jansch is the folk giant from Glasgow who's known for his influence on others - Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Marr. I start to feel foolish because I don't know enough about guitars to know how good he is, but then I know it feels good to watch him play and hear how beautiful the songs are.
King Creosote must be a bit scared coming on after Jansch, but their strain of folk is fresh and honest enough to earn its own place. Favourite Girl sees a few heads resting on shoulders around the hall. Yeuch, but ahh.
Adem comes right out and says how scary it is to follow two acts as strong as those. As if to underline the point, he and the band spend a few minutes tinkering and scurrying and "just mic-ing the snare" as the drummer sheepishly explains. Adem usually leaves me feeling a bit blank, but not this time. The set finishes with There Will Always Be ('..My door, it will always be open. There will always be lights on, there will always be room at my table for you...") and sweet sighs are audible from the crowd.
I miss the start of the second half but I don't mind. This is a marathon folky feast and I'm happy to leave out the Max Richter course. Mike Heron, he of the wondrous Incredible String Band, does a stint with his daughter, which is ever so slightly cringy but so open-hearted that you can't be mean about it. His songs are warm celebrations (Morning Stars, You Get Brighter) and anyway, from here on, everyone starts playing with everyone else and I love it when that happens.
Vetiver join Mike Heron on stage, although as far as I can tell, it's some combination of Vetiver, Espers and Currituck Co (Kevin Barker, Otto Hauser and another cute boy who looks lanky and beardy like they do. It's the folk Hanson!). I have yet to work out who's who, and the hairiness doesn't help. Then Vetiver (or whoever they are...) have the stage to themselves for a couple of songs (including a gorgeous version of Black is the Colour, influenced by both John Fahey and Nina Simone's arrangements, if I remember Barker’s intro rightly. Vetiver appreciate their ancestors).
And then, up comes the star of the show: Vashti Bunyan. The woman who made a record with Andrew Loog Oldham in 1970 then disappeared up to Scotland. Almost 40 years later, with a little help from a couple of things that didn't exist when she started out - Devendra Banhart and the internet - she has become something like the godmother of folk. That 1970 record, Just Another Diamond Day, was re-released in 2000. Her second album, Lookaftering, came out last year and has been warming up my iPod for the past few weeks. As well as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, the new album features a few of the musicians here tonight, including Max Richter, Adem, Kevin Barker and Otto Hauser. After a few songs, Bunyan is joined on stage by all of them, and Kieran Hebden trundles out, too. The songs are beautiful. She opens with Hidden ("This is not a folk song," she warns us. "It's a love song.") then Diamond Day, Here Before and Rainbow River, all delicate, dark songs made even more delicate and dark by her voice, which is soft and steely at the same time. She's very, very nervous though, and it's a shame you can't imagine her ever saying boo to a goose. According to her website, Vashti Bunyan never sang with her guitar in front of an audience until she played on Later With Jools Holland last November, and so to be headlining in front of around 2000 people sitting quietly in their seats at the Barbican must be pretty terrifying.
After the show, down in one of the Barbican's strange 'is it a room, is it a hallway?' areas, Circulus play their own set. I doubt Circulus are terrified of anything. They're dressed in medieval capes and huge sleeves (I might buy a big felt hat as a result of seeing them), there's a scent of patchouli in the air, and they play dirty, folky, frotting-with-the-pagans songs for a fantastic hour or more. When head loon Michael Tyack explains why we actually are all made of sunlight as he introduces My Body Is Made Of Sunlight, I am utterly convinced.
