Gillian Welch 13/11/11

A much anticipated gig after listening to her recent album 'The harrow and the harvest' and it fully lived up to my expectations. Not only is she one of the best songwriters around but she can sing superbly and also has as guitarist Dave Rawlings who is one of my current favourites. He definitely has strains of Jerry Garcia about him and that is as good as praise gets on the guitar front. The thing is that he is always edgy, utterly fluid and his playing builds on and elevates the song. I loved the way the gig was just the two of them, there was no support and the guitars (and banjos) were properly acoustic and just fed through a mike to the PA. There were two sets totalling about two hours. There was lots of stuff off the new album and some off 'Soul Journey' and also off earlier albums and a couple of covers. There were a lot of highlights. Perhaps the most powerful track was early on , 'That's the way it will be' which was raw and deep. 'Miss Ohio' was a slow and more haunting version than the studio version and also hit home. Dave's vocal lead was also strong - 'I hear it all' from his album which segueued into 'This land is my land'. 'Everything is free', 'Dixie', 'Elvis Presley Blues', 'Tennessee' - all strong performances as well. In fact thewhole gig was great, great guitar, great songs, great singing. Contender for gig of the year.