I came along, just to bring you this song

I've been to see Rod Clements, once of Lindisfarne and Jack The Lad performing an acoustic set accompanied only by Ian Thomson on double bass. Clements originally left Lindisfarne while I was still at school and the forming and reforming of these groups is a mystery probably even to the members themselves. I can confidently say that he wasn't a member when I saw them a couple of years ago, although I believe he is now. Thomson is, I think, their current bass player, but whether he was then is another matter.

Clements has a great track record. As well as writing 'Meet Me On The Corner' he has worked with the likes of Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell (he played on 'Streets of London') and, more recently, Thea Gilmore and Nigel Stonier, artists much admired by this blog. Indeed Nick Hall, a local singer/songwriter featured fairly regularly in these pages, was in the audience and was deep in conversation with Clements after the gig.

As well as both Lindisfarne and Jack The Lad numbers, they performed a couple of Jansch's songs, Ledbelly's 'Bourgeois Blues' and, more unexpectedly, the theme from Barry Norman's film review TV programmes which the more elderly among you may remember. He encored with an instrumental version of 'The In Crowd' as originally made famous by Dobie Gray. An eclectic mix therefore, which showed off his guitar virtuosity and demonstrated that you don't have to be a brilliant vocalist to entertain a crowd if you have guitar virtuosity to fall back on.

Pot56pouri

I can't remember why I took up blogging in the first place, boredom presumably. Due to other boredom induced activities my life was disrupted somewhat shortly afterwards and writing the blog became a bit of vaguely creative light relief. It subsequently developed into a way of clandestinely communicating with an agent of mine currently operating undercover; I think the term is 'a sleeper'.  Now it's turning into a vehicle for my OCD, whereby nothing can really have happened to me unless I include it here despite the fact that even I'm not terribly interested in hearing about it. Should I resist this? Obviously. Will I resist this? Obviously not. Therefore before we can crack on with anything else - and I have a bit of hot wargaming action to report on - I need to get all this stuff off my chest. Here goes:

Music: I have seen Nick B. Hall and the Resurrection Men (previously lauded here for their belting cover of Senor, Tales of Yankee Power), Dr Bob and the Bluesmakers (as excellent as ever; Maria was in fine voice) and The Jar Family. I went to the last of these on spec and, let's be honest, because the venue reduced the price to a fiver. However, I must report that they were bloody superb, to the extent that in a rush of blood I bought two of their CDs afterwards. They're on a UK tour and I urge anyone who gets a chance to see them to take it. They describe themselves as folk/blues/psych and to me were a melange of Dylan/Lindisfarne/Traffic. Top stuff.

Theatre: Or possibly music again. I saw 'Woody Sez', a play-with-music come music-with-a-bit-of-acting. It's about Woody Guthrie and the facts of his life can't help but make the thing poignant. I enjoyed it and so did the rest of the sadly small audience.

Days out: I have been to Fountains Abbey with the younger Miss Epictetus and the dog; and I have been to the Otley Show with the elder Miss Epictetus and the dog. The dog, far from being grateful, has left muddy paw prints all across my living room carpet. It will not be invited anywhere by me again. I avoided losing my #newnotnew camera at the Otley Show by the simple and foolproof method of not taking it with me. I am unable once again therefore to bring you photographs of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War competition, which will be disappointing for any among you who like voluptuous women getting a sweat on.

You won't have met me, and you'll soon forget me

I seem to have been attending concerts by wrinkly rockers regularly recently. [“Tell me,” the Rhetorical Pedant asks “if you did that deliberately; because it’s not big and it’s not clever.”] Last night at the Royal Hall, Harrogate it was the turn of Lindisfarne, or at least of Ray Jackson masquerading as the whole of Lindisfarne. He did have with him five other musicians who had previously been members of the band at various stages over the last forty years, but only he was there during their first four albums and Top of the Pops phase. The seventh person on the stage was the Great Paul Thompson, previously the drummer of Roxy Music.

They played the hits that you’d expect with the late Alan Hull’s part very ably filled by Dave Hull-Denholm (relation). At the risk of annoying Elkie Brooks’ most passionate fan (hello there Maria), Lindisfarne once again complied with my newly formulated rule that acts of a certain age intensely dislike their most famous hit and end up throwing it away as a singalong. Possibly as the exception that proves the rule this happened not just – as one would imagine – to “Fog on the Tyne”, but also to “We Can Swing Together”. In fact the latter also included truly naff harmonica renditions of a variety of Christmas songs plus “Ilkley Moor Bat’at” as a patronising nod to the crowd and “Blaydon Races” as a patronising nod to Jackson himself. Thankfully “Lady Eleanor”, “Meet Me on the Corner”, “Run for Home” (*) and “Clear White Light” were treated with more of the respect that they deserved. The highlight for me was actually Hull-Denholm’s rendition of “Winter Song”.

And every step I take, takes me further from heaven

In their heyday the band played and recorded an eclectic mix of music and so it was at this concert; encores included tracks more commonly associated with Canned Heat and Woody Guthrie. The crowd however were largely drawn from the folk-rock fraternity, although possibly with a smattering of Harrogate pensioners who had just wandered in to get out of the cold. Anyway, like all folkies the audience fondly imagined that they could sing in tune and clap in time when in fact they could do neither. Thankfully, it being folk rock meant that there was a rhythm section to drown them out. As previously mentioned this included the fantastic Mr Thompson who I always admired in the seventies for the solid base that he provided for Andy Mackay’s wavering sax, Phil Manzanera’s soaring guitar and for whatever it was that Eno did.

* Surely the only instance in popular music of lyrics containing the word 'buffoon'