Caroline Street Social Club – Page 13

Nov 9 2021

Chris Helme

Sunday 7th November 2021

Photos and review by Keith Belcher

Sunday 7th November 2021, The Live Room, Saltaire: Chris Helme, solo with one acoustic guitar, making his long overdue TLR debut. Being heard singing in the bath got him his first line up in the band Chutzpah, having heard his voice I can see why. Best known for his adventures with the band The Seahorses between 1996 and 1999, he auditioned for that job after being seen and heard busking outside Woolworths in York. During that time he and the band supported the likes of Oasis, U2 and The Rolling Stones. Between 1999 and 2009 he performed solo and with The Yards. Since 2009 he has been mainly a solo performer.

I admit knowing next to nothing about the indie scene of the 90’s but I was very impressed with Chris’s performance at TLR. During the sound check it was very noticeable just what a great voice he had. I can’t recall many people having that powerful a voice and I don’t mean the type of histrionics favoured by The Voice, X Factor etc. While setting up Chris requested a small table on stage a la the late Dave Allen, he favoured glasses of wine and water rather than Dave’s whiskey. He didn’t actually tell any jokes about the Pope but did sit on a tall stool and sip his drink in between songs and anecdotes in a very laid back manner.

He is a very natural raconteur, having the audience in stitches with his between song stories about all sorts, not just the song intros but his various office jobs. He could just have easily have performed a stand-up routine on a comedy night judging from the laughs and excellent delivery. We did get a few seconds of a George Formby version of Love Is The Law, much singing along from the audience.

Two sets, opening with Hello from Seahorses times. Songs performed on the night were a mixture of The Seahorses and The Yards as well as much of his own solo material . There was also a liberal peppering of covers of The Faces, Paul Simon , Nina Simone and the Doors. A stomping version of The Doors Five To One segueing into Be Your Husband as the encore, the audience being fully engaged in clapping and chorus duties. A different atmosphere in The Live Room tonight with a relatively younger audience than is usual, many making their first visit. I don’t think it was just the songs and his history that drew his fans to The Live Room, excellent though his performance was. He seemed to have an astonishing rapport with the crowd knowing many of them and it took an age for him to get to the Merch desk, so many wanted to chat to him. I for one, really hope we see him at TLR again in the near future.

Oct 24 2021

Spiers & Boden

Friday 22nd October 2022

Review and photos by Keith Belcher

The first full house for The Live Room for over 18 months. The first duo tour of John Spiers and Jon Boden since 2014, the juggernaut that was Bellowhead kind of ruled their lives for a while after that. Jon played TLR solo in June this year doing two sold out socially restricted shows which were also streamed and were superb. John was last at TLR pre “you know what” with Peter Knight’s Gigspanner Big Band on 1st December 2019, that was also a fantastic night. Tonight the support was Lady Nade who had also appeared at TLR opening for the fabulous Yola in May 2019, that really seems a lifetime or more ago . That also was a stupendous show. OK, a pattern of superb, fantastic and stupendous shows emerges and Friday lived up to that pattern.

Lady Nade opened with a very self assured set, taking songs from her 5 albums to date starting with Natalie from her 2019 album Safe Place. An as yet unreleased song Jess(I think) from a forthcoming album also featured in her short but very well appreciated set, her poetic lyrics , melodies and delivery brought a few oohs and aahs from an audience that was probably majority standing but very attentive and respectful.

Described as eclectic Americana, her song and poem writings originated as a way of tackling grief. Last time around, if memory serves well, a lot of her set was food and recipe based. Not quite so much of that this time but her merch desk had a tea towel with an very yummy looking cocktail recipe printed on it. Many of the seated audience found a free sampler CD on their seats which she had distributed before the show.

A very quick turnaround to Spiers and Boden. A very slick tour with a travelling sound guy who did a wonderful job. Judging from the cheers they received when they took the stage and the fact this show had been sold out for months, it would be an understatement to say this was a crowd well ready for some Spiers and Boden magic. Wands were waved and we got two very lively sets.

Butter & Cheese & All , a song from the new album Fallow Ground started off the show. The album, as was to be expected featured heavily throughout the sets. An old tune was next ,The Oswestry Wake/Morgan Rattler from their first album Through and Through, first released 2001, another very rousing whaling song oldie followed with Old Maui from 2005’s Songs Album. Hind Horn was the first song from Fallow Ground. The rest of the first set was all Fallow Ground. As was usual with this duo comprehensive song and tune backgrounds featured in the introductions, very informative and often very funny. The merch announcements warned against panic buying, restricting the presigned CDs to 10 per person to maintain control.

There wasn’t really room for dancing but there was an awful lot of foot tapping and shuffling going on, not least from Jon and John on their stomp boards. John Spiers had a very impressive array of melodeons and concertinas, they were on display for tax purposes he said. Jon Boden played fiddle throughout the night except for one song on guitar. A pretty busy merch session after set 1 but nowhere near the long line queuing for merch at the end of the show.

Set 2 kicked off with Tom Padget from 2008’s Vagabond (also re-recorded for 2011’s The Works) then a set of tunes from Fallow Ground , The Giant’s Waltz and John’s The Ironing Board Hornpipe, he remarked if he didn’t give his tunes names pretty quickly he forgot them. The title track, Fallow Ground , a night visiting song was next. As Jon announced at the start the songs featured were between 150 to 250 years old , the “cutting edge” stuff being only 150 years old. They will probably still be around in different formats in another 150 years.

The finales to the show ranked up there with the best Bellowhead shows. A superb but delicate fiddle intro to the very, very lively Haul Away from 2003’s Bellow. All too soon the final song was announced The Prickle-Eye Bush from both Bellow/The Works. They really weren’t going to get out of Saltaire without an encore and what an encore….the very lively and very sing along Bellowhead favourite New York Girls, recorded on Hedonism. I would say the majority of the audience were singing along to not only the choruses but the verses also. Listening to the multitude of voices singing along together was another apt reminder of what live music is really about. In an outdoor venue with space there would have been Morris dancers doing their thing as well as singing. A really wonderful night. I made my way past the very long queue for merch humming New York Girls…I was a happy bunny!

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