This wasn't as I expected - but in a good way. I only found out that the support was Dave Swarbrick a couple of hours before the gig so we brought forward the arrival time to get a good seat. The venue is the 'tent' at the National Forest Waterside Centre near Moira and it's unreserved seating with latecomers having to use the very wet seats on the hill behind the tent.
Dave Swarbrick could barely walk but his fiddle playing was superb.
When Richard Thompson came on for his set, Swarbrick also appeared and did three numbers with him. In fact they were essentially more Swarbrick numbers with Richard Thompson playing guitar accompaniment. I reckon it was the highlight of the gig. I realised at this point that the gig was turning out very differently from my expectations which were based on seeing him in the same venue almost exactly a year previously.
Thompson then did his solo set and covered a number of favourites as well as taking some requests. The only request he slightly balked at was 'Hokey Pokey' but after saying that it was not in his current repertoire he then proceeded to play a one minute version which sounded pretty good.
I particularly enjoyed "Wall of Death" and "I Misunderstood" and the version of "Crawl Back" was high tempo. It is always good to hear "Vincent Black Lightning 1952" and also "Beeswing" although I've heard deliver them with more feeling.
"'Dad's Gonna Kill Me" was delivered with passion and there was some enjoyable bile as regards George Bush between tracks.
At most gigs there is a track that you clock in a new way and the track that did that for me was "Sunset Song" which he did early on.
The one other stand-out track was I think "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight". Other than that pretty standard Richard Thompson. Sounds good to me.
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