Joan Baez 15/10/09

The show started bang on 7:30 and was over by 9:20 but as Joan was on stage the whole time it was a good effort for someone in their late sixties. Her voice is still stupendous though it may be struggling a little bit more at times that it was five years ago. The band was excellent and in particular John Doyle played a mean acoustic guitar. The show was very much a retrospective with songs from five decades and a lot of old favourites included but there was also a wish to freshen up the selection. "Silver Dagger" for example came in a bluegrass version and there was a new song written by one of the band Dirk Powell. Also included were a couple of tracks from the most recent album one of which was an Elvis Costello song "Scarlet Tide" which she sang last time we saw her a couple of years ago. The other was a song from Steve Earle - "God is God" with characteristic chord progressions.
Old favourites included "Diamonds and Rust" as the first encore which was solo. In fact there was a fair amount of the show which was just her solo and she still plays an accomplished guitar. Other favourites included "Love is a four letter word" with a couple of lines sung imitating Dylan, "Farewell Angelina" which she delivers beautifully and hauntingly, "Joe Hill", and my personal favourite "Carrickfergus". Her voice was just amazing on Carrickfergus, so powerful and pure and dripping with poignancy. The band were good singers as well as musicians. There was a great gospel song involving harmonies from the whole band and they also finished the evening with an acappello gospel song. As the penultimate song she of course did "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" guaranteed to send the audience away in good spirits.