two loads of freight
Feb. 28th, 2022 03:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacPoking my (mask-covered) face out in to the world a bit, I got to the Freight & Salvage for two folk or folk-like concerts this week, I think my first musical visit there in three and a half years.
First was Richard Thompson, with just his guitar and his songs and (for part of the time) a backing vocalist and a mouth organist. This was good, but less fun than his all-request program of a few years back. Most of the songs were new ones that I didn't know and found a bit hard to assimilate, as shown by even the ones I did know ("Gethsemane," "She Moves Through the Fair," and of course "1952 Vincent Black Lightning") being given heavy-handed. RT's guitar style has developed a lot of heavy bass thumps that I could do without.
The other was a Scottish folk band called Talisk. The description on the Freight's calendar was intriguing, so I listened to some of their videos and was dazzled: Celtic fast folk dances delivered by a trio of concertina, fiddle, and guitar with blistering high energy and a charming infectiousness. They've just recently changed fiddlers, and this has had some good effects: more solos, and some interesting harmonic and rhythmic passages, for fiddle, instead of just doubling the concertina, and more variety of tempo in the songs. But though the energy remained high in concert, the infectiousness had leaked out of the new material. The volume level was a wee bit too loud for me, and I could really have done without the electronic bass thumps controlled by the guitarist's foot.
What is it with all these thumps? Has our music been infected by the malign spirit of Donald Thump?
First was Richard Thompson, with just his guitar and his songs and (for part of the time) a backing vocalist and a mouth organist. This was good, but less fun than his all-request program of a few years back. Most of the songs were new ones that I didn't know and found a bit hard to assimilate, as shown by even the ones I did know ("Gethsemane," "She Moves Through the Fair," and of course "1952 Vincent Black Lightning") being given heavy-handed. RT's guitar style has developed a lot of heavy bass thumps that I could do without.
The other was a Scottish folk band called Talisk. The description on the Freight's calendar was intriguing, so I listened to some of their videos and was dazzled: Celtic fast folk dances delivered by a trio of concertina, fiddle, and guitar with blistering high energy and a charming infectiousness. They've just recently changed fiddlers, and this has had some good effects: more solos, and some interesting harmonic and rhythmic passages, for fiddle, instead of just doubling the concertina, and more variety of tempo in the songs. But though the energy remained high in concert, the infectiousness had leaked out of the new material. The volume level was a wee bit too loud for me, and I could really have done without the electronic bass thumps controlled by the guitarist's foot.
What is it with all these thumps? Has our music been infected by the malign spirit of Donald Thump?
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Date: 2022-02-28 12:42 pm (UTC)Don't forget that the big bass drum is a traditional Scottish music thing!
Mohsen Amini is the most incredible concertina player!