Rosanne Cash 26 July 2018

This was a 'Colston Hall gig' taking place at St Georges because of the hall closure and the place was rammed on a very hot day. That was pretty much forgotten once the excellent set started. I was expecting Rosanne to sing good songs but the unexpected bonus was the guitar playing of hubby John Leventhal. I found his acoustic guitar playing both very expressive and precise and subtle and it was perfectly attuned to the songs. The set was pretty varied ranging from Appalachian folk standards to 'Ode to Billy Jo' to 'Farewell Angelina' to many of the Americana songs written by Rosanne and by Rosanne and John. She started with the three excellent songs from her 2014 (and most recent) album, 'The River and the Thread', written in and about the delta. She included some Johnny Cash recommended songs from the list he produced for her of all time Americana classics and a great John Hiatt cover of 'This is how we make a broken heart'. A gig to put you in a good humour.

Natalie Merchant 17 July 2018

We went to this gig largely on the back of loving the song 'Motherland' which has been covered by other people such as Christy Moore. Also intriguing was the location - at the Grade 1 Listed Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham. It was a good call - Natalie turned out to be a great vocalist and was also an entertaining character as evidenced by her insistence on having the external doors open to keep the place cool despite the management's objections. There was no support just Natalie on vocals and her husband on guitar accompaniment and there was an informal and chatty interaction with the audience. She started straight off with the aforementioned 'Motherland' and it was amazing to hear her sing it. I was wondering how the rest of the gig was going to be now I had just heard my favourite song but actually it was great; her singing was more powerful than I anticipated, the songs were great, the ambience brilliant. Particular highlights were a song called 'The Living' - bleak but powerful and a couple of songs that followed soon after; 'Golden Boy' and 'Carnival'. The encore was strange - a couple of songs with guitar and vocals as before then hubby left the stage and Natalie moved to the shiney red keyboard that had been stood there untouched and flicked through a music book settling at random on songs and playing them 'until I make a mistake'. A couple of songs got all the way through and others just ended half way through. I wondered whether they were old 10,000 Maniacs songs that she hadn't played in a long time. An excellent and entertaining gig.