I got in just in time for CHRIS PECK'S last song. A great pity as if I Walk Alone was anything to go by, Chris and his band (violin, viola, acoustic guitar and mandolin) were pretty damn fine and Chris has a good voice in a deep new folk kind of way.
Second on was CHRISTOF who is a Dutch folksinger, yet strangely speaks in a Dutch Irish accent which is a bit odd but not as odd as his dress sense. It seemed like he had told his gran he was going to London to become a folksinger and she had kitted him out to be the new Val Doonican! He had on a check shirt and a christmas type cardigan that had only the top button done up so it looked almost cape like, most odd.
His first song was about the Cuckoos in spring and it came over like he was trying to sound like Art Garfunkel and aiming himself towards the heart of the new mild wave that is going on. Honey Tears didn't dispel this and even sounded like he might have stolen some of his ideas off of Roger Whitaker!! Even when he went political on Rossport (a song about the pipeline being built) he still sounded very mild indeed like Bon Iver are too action packed for him. That and the feeling he may have something of the Jon Voigt in Midnight Cowboy about his small town innocence.
The Ghost of Corpse Lady while a great title and not a bad Art Garfunkel rip. It didn't exactly set the place on fire, I wasn't sure if I'll Go Down the Road With you was a promise or a threat or just his attempt to be a bit Mumford and Sons rather than his obvious hero , Mr. Whittaker. Slowdown Now seemed a bit pointless as he wasn't exactly rushing to begin with. But then he closed with Mind Myself which seemed apt as many of us wouldn't be minding him much in the future.
After a short break on came MADISON VIOLET, a Canadian Duo who are touring to promote their fourth album The Good In Goodbye and a good part of the British or "fish and chips" leg of the tour as they put it, is sold out.
I always take it as a good sign when I notice someone like Sid Griffin standing almost next to me and so it proved. They opened with Your Heart is Looking at Another one to Mine: a song about a lover who is not totally focussed on the one he or she is with. Brenley MacEarchern's nicely raspy delivery puts the story over well and she is soon joking and bantering with her partner in crime Lisa MacIsaac between songs as they introduce A Ransom about how you haven't quite got the money to pay the rent and you aren't making what you thought you would from your band. It's a great song and Lisa sings winning harmonies with Brenley.
They swapped instuments after most songs and played assorted acoustic guitars, a mandolin, a Violin and a National Steel along the way. Laura Lee was a song about love gone wrong for the sort of girl who would have been very popular when she was young and playing around. Never Saw The Ending is a great tune again of wrong love, but they were also bantering about how they come from Huge families in the middle of nowhere, so much that if the two families got together there would be about 130 of them. This song is about waking up the morning after and looking at the one night stand beside you and realising you're related. Which is a horrific thought.
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They then got a little political when they explained what Stuck In Love is about: those unlucky couples who had gay marriages when it was legal to do so but can't get divorced as it's no longer legal to get married. You can't get a divorce so you are stuck in love or "Shit Out of Luck" as Lisa put it. Whatever, it's a great song about a serious matter. Fallen By The Wayside gives some of it away in the title but they always had twists in the lyrics and the music was always great. They are very fine players indeed.
Home was all about the smalltown, middle of nowhere Canada they come from and how no matter where the music takes them they are always glad to get back home. Partly so Brenley can go and visit her grandmother who as well as being mother to 16 children also turned 100 last year. Brenley wrote Christine Allen Francis about her and the 32 mittens she had to put on her kids: a very touching tribute to (from the sounds of it) quite a woman.
Whenever I'm Away is again about the longing to be back home when your out on the road and dreaming of being back on the small island you call home. Cindy Cindy may well have been a cover version as it sounded very familiar to me and a good song anyway. Come As You Are is their own song and not the Nirvana one thankfully.
I'm Your Lady had quite a statement to it and I have to say there were many men in the audience who would have been very happy to hear them insist on that, but they were too busy telling us that there were only four of the hats Brenley's mum had Knitted left for sale after the gig, along with the bands own belt buckles and t-shirts and cd's. Yes they actually have their mums making the merch for them to sell, how country is that!?
They encored with the title track of the new CD The Good and Goodbye: another love gone wrong tune that sounded mighty fine and then closed the night with You Don't Know How It Feels. I have to say I thought they were charming and a brilliant live act who need to be seen while on the current tour. It goes back to Canada and then to Australia and onwards. What a great feisty live act they are.
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