Blog

plus support Joe Martin

Friday 26th April 2019

Friday 26th April 2019, The Live Room, Caroline Street Social Club. A long awaited and very memorable appearance of the great guitarist and singer John Smith whose voice as been described as honey and gravel delighted the very enthusiastic crowd who had travelled from far and wide.

As well as songs from the new CD Hummingbird John dug deeply into his back catalogue as well as a very unexpected (and brilliant) cover of a Christina Aguilera hit.

The second of the 3 encore songs would be especially memorable for young 7 year old Rosemary from Scotland attending her first gig. She got to choose the song. A thoroughly explosive rendition of Winter with the guitar played on John’s lap finished the night.

Another artist long sought by the Live Room, Joe Martin originally from Clitheroe, Lancs opened with a set of well penned songs demonstrating a great voice and guitar work. From the audience reception, he, along with John , will be very welcome back in the near (hopefully) future .

with support Ole Kirkeng

Friday 19th April 2019

Words and photos by Keith Belcher

Friday 19th April 2019, The Live Room, Caroline Street Social Club Saltaire. Molly Tuttle with Ole Kirkeng opening. I am not even going to attempt to say how good this show was or what a fantastic guitarist Molly is or how sublime the encore as a duet of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice was. Suffice to say anyone who wasn’t there really missed out on a momentous musical treat.

Sunday 14th April 2019

Review and photos by Keith Belcher

Sunday 14th April 2019, The Live Room, Caroline Social Club, Saltaire. A long overdue first visit from Megson. Currently attracting rave review for their 9th album CONTRADICSHUN Megson are Stu and Debbie Hanna, originally from Teeside now resident in Cambridge. They named themselves after Debbie’s family dog .

Still retaining their Teeside accents and even still supporting Middlesbrough (someone has to!!) they manage to create folk songs that are topical and meaningful leaning heavily on their Teeside roots. They did slip in a Cambridge based song with Barrington Judo Club, They are very gifted vocally alternating lead vocals and at time combining for superb harmonies. Stu also plays guitar, banjo and mandolin and Debbie plays accordion and whistles. On this tour Stu has added a stomp box to his collection of instruments. Their songs are stories told in that increasingly rare manner of being clearly sung and understandable, always a great thing for song writers to achieve but so many don’t.

Artists at the Live Room are always introduced by Hilary. More venues should do the same. It enables the crowd to turn off their phones, put away their crisps, stop their chat and listen. From an artists point of view they don’t have to shuffle on stage waiting for the sound/lights guy to turn off the house music and turn up the stage lights and the crowd to notice their presence. Usually Hilary knocks on the dressing room door but tonight the band weren’t there they were sitting at the side waiting. It caused a humourous slight confusion to the start of the show. 

The first set consisted of songs from the latest album. Opening with Are You Sitting Comfortably , a well known catch phrase form Watch With Mother (you need to be of a certain age!!). It’s a sombre , quiet , introspective song dealing with humdrum domesticity, lead vocals were alternated to Stu’s guitar . A complete change of pace for Contradicshun featuring Stu on mandolin and Debbie on accordion. One of two 19th century songs on the album, obviously not written by Megson. Other songs in the set covered topics such as immigration, martial arts clubs, conflicting memories , songs of sobriety and drinking with Stu creating the image of people skipping around Newcastle after a drink, for some reason he quoted Newcastle as the template for the lack of sobriety…. The set finished with a “night visiting song” . At the end of set one I heard the person next to me say “What a wonderful voice she has”. I would say the same applied to Stu’s voice and their harmonies were more

Set 2 opened with 4 songs from their 2016 album GOOD TIMES WILL COME AGAIN. The first two telling of steelworks in the North East followed by The Bookkeeper, a love song for accountants. It reminds me of the Chris Wood/Hugh Lupton song One in A Million (and from me that is serious praise). The still topical and highly relevant Generation Rent tells the story of the hopelessness of a generation who will never be able to afford to buy their own properties.

As with many of their songs they introduce humour to balance the comments on current reality. They even managed with The Long Shot from the album of the same name to make a song of beauty and humour inspired by Middlesbrough Football team from the album of the same name.

The final song of the current album A Week In The Caravan also finished the set. As was expected and deserved they were called back for an encore of When The Good Times Roll, they asked the audience to sing along and sing along they surely did, Stu ramped up the pace on guitar throughout. A great finish to a great show. On their showing and reception on Sunday night I imagine their next visit will not take as long to arrange as this one did.

We were absolutely thrilled to welcome Hannah and Ben back to TLR last Friday, they are genuinely one of our favourite acts and lovely people too. They remain big music fans and supporters of other artists as well as highly respected musicians and songwriters in their own right. Thanks also to Henry Parker for a great support set!

Unfortunately, we were without Keith Belcher, our regular reviewer and photographer at the weekend, as he was enjoying a well-deserved holiday in Cornwall! So we only have a few photos to share, thanks to Diane Park. If anyone else has a few they’d like to share with us, please email to ron@theliveroom.info and we’ll put them up!

Review and photos by Keith Belcher

Sunday 24th March 2019, The Live Room, Caroline Social Club, Saltaire. Playing the Live Room on the final night of their first UK tour were Boston (US) based band Mile Twelve. Nothing unusual about good bluegrass from Boston, check out Crooked Still’s catalogue. Listening and watching the sound check it was obvious that tonight was going to be quite a special and enjoyable night.

The band were definitely in high spirits and wow, did it show in their performance!!. Comprising lead vocalist Evan Murphy on guitar, David Benedict mandolin, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, fiddle, Nate Sabat, upright bass and BB Bowness on banjo. What the audience delighted in was 2 sets of old and new, fast and slow bluegrass, mainly songs , some tunes, some seriously high octane and classy playing and singing. Very easy to see why they are being predicted for great things in the future. Already IBMA award winners.

Throughout the night there was an intricate dance of shared instrumental leads and breaks , mixing up the vocals mainly through the one microphone in true bluegrass style. All members participating in some superb vocals obviously well choreographed and practiced to pull it off so smoothly.

The fastest song and playing was possibly at the end of the show with Innocent Again which was exhausting to just listen to!! After that they were called back for an encore, a surprise to me, that “well known” bluegrass classic of Elton John – Rocket man, just sublime, such effective fiddle glissandi. The audience weren’t going to let them go without a second encore and so they came back for a very upbeat version of yet another “well known” bluegrass classic, Ramblin’ Man by the Allman Brothers.

A great demonstration of just what you can do in the bluegrass genre if the players are good enough and tonight they were. Great participation from the audience I might add. A thoroughly enjoyable night. They are planning another visit , let’s hope it’s not too long.

Friday 15th March 2019

What a fantastic night we had with this quartet from Madrid. A night of joyous entertainment, to forget about the woes of Brexit was promised, and that’s exactly what we got. Brilliant entertainment, harmonies and laughs all the way. They’ll definitely be back at some point. Thank you to everyone who came out and gave them such a huge crowd to play to!

Thanks too to Val Pelleschi, Harvey Bosomworth, Ruta Carter, Nick Lacey and Pete Stevens for the photos below, in the absence of Keith, who was away for the evening.

Sunday 10th March 2019

A fabulous night of genuine country music and honky tonk, none of your Nashville country pop, just great songs played by a purist! Photos by Keith Belcher

David had been on our hit list since, purely by chance, seeing his amazing one camera take of the track ‘State Of The Union’ from his debut album, ‘I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused’, on YouTube. We were floored not just by the originality and ingenuity, but also the passion with which the song was delivered. This was 2006 and we were still running Live at the Talbot in Tregaron, mid-Wales. We immediately wanted to book him, so started to track him down.

Fast forward almost thirteen years and, despite many attempts and some fleeting near misses, David had remained frustratingly out of reach. Having finally managed to bring him to our stage, he freely admitted that our inability to secure him was not a case of his being evasive, but instead down to poor admin! Indeed, in this age of seemingly constant social media self-promotion, it was only when he was in the van on the way from his home in Eastbourne to the show, that the idea of mentioning it on his Facebook page occurred to him.

This inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to engage with the business machinery was possibly explained in part during his show, which constituted a departure from his usual performance style into something of an interactive retrospective on his 15 year ‘career’. That word is placed deliberately in inverted commas, as David himself doesn’t think of what he does as a career. As he explained during what was a pretty much heart-on-the-sleeve performance, any idea of a ‘career’ in the music business ended, at least in part, during the very painful creation and promotion of his second album, ‘Let The Hard Times Roll’.

He clearly enjoys the fact that he now has the freedom to create music the way he wants, and the loyalty and connection with a sizeable army of genuine fans on both sides of the Atlantic. However, his brushes with the ‘suits’ of the business over the years wounded him so deeply that he once almost stopped making music, and those wounds have clearly left scars, at least one of which takes the shape of ‘I Choose This’, both the title of a song and his book. The subtitle of the book is ‘How To Nearly Make It In The Music Industry’ and perfectly captures the wryness of his humour and why he now chooses to carve his own, completely individual path.

The stage was set to create the impression that we had been invited into David’s front parlour; part concert, part theatre. In a show lasting around two and a half hours, we got anecdotes, question and answer sessions that gave an intriguing insight into this particular songwriter’s creative processes, and of course a bunch of wonderful songs. We even got, as part of an answer to one of those questions, an impromptu version of ‘You Were Always On My Mind’, a hit for Elvis, Willie Nelson and The Pet Shop Boys, and a song that David greatly admires for it’s perfect marriage of sentiment and melody.

This particular show format from David is still something of a work in progress. He admitted to the audience that he’s still having trouble with the running times and it may not suit those who want a more conventional, song-led show. However, for his fans and those who are interested in what makes a great songwriter and performer tick and the hurdles they have to overcome to create their own identity and maintain self respect, this is an engrossing and immersive experience. The passion is still there, but rather like a magician revealing how it’s done, he gave us an insight into what actually created it.

Photos by Keith Belcher

Here are a few photos from our first few days in Montreal. In no particular order (because I didn’t have time or inclination!), from our journey, arrival, hotel and bar, the underground city and, oh yes, some music showcases, ‘cos that’s what we’re here for! More soon…..