By the time a full-of-cold Seth Lakeman returns to the stage for his encore he is unable to sing. But given the wilful disregard with which he has treated his fragile vocal chords during the preceding 75 minute performance it’s surprising that he’s lasted this long. This is not lost on the audience and as Seth picks up his electric violin and he and his band launch into an instrumental version of Send Yourself Away the crowd go sympathetically crazy.
On record Lakeman’s songs can sometimes seem too polite. This year’s Freedom Fields is full of wonderfully arranged and performed self-penned and traditional folk songs but as with the new folk movement for which he is the poster boy, the whole enterprise often has the air of a museum piece about it. Certainly the sold-out crowd on Saturday night appeared to have a conservative element. Well-spoken, sober teenagers and their earnest parents were well represented, as were beautiful, longhaired but fragile-looking young women sipping distractedly at their glasses of wine.
But when a clean-cut, intense, muscular young man took to the stage with three cohorts and announced, the veins in his neck bulging and with a wicked grin on his face, that it was time for a hoedown, it was obvious that the night was not to be without menace.
The set Lakeman went on to play did indeed draw heavily on Freedom Fields but the songs were played faster, louder and more urgently. The band, all double bass, banjo, and percussion, played like the tight, experienced outfit they are. At their best they recalled the Pogues or the Incredible String Band in their ability to take a traditional form of music and infuse it with a rock and roll sensibility. And this approach, combined with Lakeman’s driven delivery, revealed his songs to be much stranger and more satisfying experiences than they are on record.
Shorn of their respectful production values and given this kind of barnstorming performance these mannered folk numbers were transformed into drinking songs, sea-shanties, and hymns to love and tragedy. Highlights included Lady Of The Sea, a song inspired by an old shipwreck and the English civil war epic, 1643, both of which were delivered in an unrestrained howl by Lakeman. But there were others to. Tales of mining disasters, white hares that will steal a traveller’s soul, and young men who mistake their lovers for swans and shoot them, were all delivered in a similar fashion. The teenagers stamped their feet and sang along with every one. The parents began to look less comfortable.
The centrepiece of the evening, though, was Lakeman’s performance of Kitty Jay. This weird tale of love gone wrong in Dartmoor has long been a favourite amongst the fans and on the night nobody would have disagreed with them. Performed alone under a blood-red spotlight and accompanied only by his electric violin and a stamping foot, Lakeman built the whole thing to a satisfyingly unhinged climax. And then everything went black and he had left the stage. Everybody shouted for more but by now it was the parents who were shouting the loudest.
On record Lakeman’s songs can sometimes seem too polite. This year’s Freedom Fields is full of wonderfully arranged and performed self-penned and traditional folk songs but as with the new folk movement for which he is the poster boy, the whole enterprise often has the air of a museum piece about it. Certainly the sold-out crowd on Saturday night appeared to have a conservative element. Well-spoken, sober teenagers and their earnest parents were well represented, as were beautiful, longhaired but fragile-looking young women sipping distractedly at their glasses of wine.
But when a clean-cut, intense, muscular young man took to the stage with three cohorts and announced, the veins in his neck bulging and with a wicked grin on his face, that it was time for a hoedown, it was obvious that the night was not to be without menace.
The set Lakeman went on to play did indeed draw heavily on Freedom Fields but the songs were played faster, louder and more urgently. The band, all double bass, banjo, and percussion, played like the tight, experienced outfit they are. At their best they recalled the Pogues or the Incredible String Band in their ability to take a traditional form of music and infuse it with a rock and roll sensibility. And this approach, combined with Lakeman’s driven delivery, revealed his songs to be much stranger and more satisfying experiences than they are on record.
Shorn of their respectful production values and given this kind of barnstorming performance these mannered folk numbers were transformed into drinking songs, sea-shanties, and hymns to love and tragedy. Highlights included Lady Of The Sea, a song inspired by an old shipwreck and the English civil war epic, 1643, both of which were delivered in an unrestrained howl by Lakeman. But there were others to. Tales of mining disasters, white hares that will steal a traveller’s soul, and young men who mistake their lovers for swans and shoot them, were all delivered in a similar fashion. The teenagers stamped their feet and sang along with every one. The parents began to look less comfortable.
The centrepiece of the evening, though, was Lakeman’s performance of Kitty Jay. This weird tale of love gone wrong in Dartmoor has long been a favourite amongst the fans and on the night nobody would have disagreed with them. Performed alone under a blood-red spotlight and accompanied only by his electric violin and a stamping foot, Lakeman built the whole thing to a satisfyingly unhinged climax. And then everything went black and he had left the stage. Everybody shouted for more but by now it was the parents who were shouting the loudest.