Richard Thompson 23/7/2014

It had been a while since I last saw Richard Thompson and he was on at an interesting venue I hadn't been to - the art deco former cinema known as The Bath Forum so we trouped off to catch the gig. The support were superb - a folky duo comprising Richard's daughter Kami and her husband James Walbourne. His guitar picking was exemplary - I really enjoyed the feeling, energy and sheer skill of it, the songs were great and Kami's singing voice had more than a hint of Linda Thompson's haunting vocal style as you might expect. All in all as good a support act as you could hope for. 'Fair Warning' the title track of their first album was particularly strong. Richard Thompson's set is never predictable even when he is doing an acoustic tour to promote a CD of his acoustic 'classic songs'. You can maybe predict he will do 'Wall of Death' and '1952 Vincent Black Lightning' and those classics were included I'm delighted to say, but he probably played only about half the tracks he included on the just-released acoustic album. It is nice that his setlist is not predictable and he has such a huge back catalogue to choose from you can guarantee a gig of wonderful songs whatever he chooses. 'Valerie' was memorable as was 'I want to see the bright lights tonight' as was 'Dimming of the day' - I could go on but the essence is a master guitarist playing an acoustic guitar he completely owns singing classic and interesting songs. It is essentially a masterclass without anye need for expensive guitars being tuned and changed by guitar techs - just a musician in his element inspiring an emotional response from the audience. Having talked about his back catalogue I would have to say the highlight of the gig was the very last song which was a new unreleased song from a Thompson 'family' album. The Rails joined him for a song called 'That's enough' and the guitar playing on it was an absolute joy. James Walbourne poured his heart into a solo which Richard Thompson then had to emulate followed by more from James then Richard again. Kami just looked at this point with a big smile on her face as the men in her life jostled for guitar perfection. When the gig dies down in my memory I look forward to listening to the new albums from The Rails and Richard Thompson.

Tempero - 4/7/2014

Tempero perform most nights in the Isaac synagogue in Krakow - it's a tourist gig really, presumably to raise funds for the place but for all that it is a superb set based on traditional Klezmer music with four excellent musicians. The accordion player was perfect and his interplay with the fiddle player as they ramped up the tempo was the heart of the music. The drummer was also notable - he seemed to have an endless variety of means to produce percussive sounds from blocks of wood, rattles, shakers and of course his small set of drums as well. The set was not pure traditional Klezmer but there was an authenticity to the overall sound and the acoustics and setting of the old synagogue were ideal. A bargain for 60 zloty.

A-wa 3/7/2014

Staying in the Jewish quarter of Krakov whilst there happened to be a Jewish Festival on meant there were some gigs of - you guessed it - Jewish music. the first one we took in was a band called A-Wa who were based around three vocalist sisters with accompanying synthesiser, bass and drums. The festival programme promised traditional Yemenite songs but the main thrust of the set was beat-based dance music with a distinctively modern feel. There weere a couple of songs introduced as Yemenite traditional tunes and for me they were the best two tracks of the gig. You could feel the desert atmosphere and the cultural constraints of whatever was being forbidden or lost - well that was what came across to me anyway. The sisters' voices were great and of course perfectly harmonised. The beats were a little relentless though, although a section dancing in a corner of the synagogue were obviously enjoying them. The guy playing the keyboard/guitar synthesiser was the weak link - he banged out pretty simple rhythms a bit too loudly but it was an enjoyable hour and a quarter nonetheless.