 Bellowhead Live at Brighton's Concorde 2 |
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Thursday, February 19 2009 @ 11:26 AM UTC
Author: Dan. Views: 41
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The greatest artists, musicians and performers know how to beg, borrow and steal and make something new from the blend of sources and influences; and (as numerous awards have proved) Bellowhead are up there with the best.
Started by two folk musicians, John Boden and John Spiers, the band are now around the dozen mark, with everything from folk staples like bagpipes and bouzoukis to more unusual instruments like flugelhorn and frying pan pressed into service. It's certainly a squash on Concorde 2's stage tonight, and with the band dancing around and swapping instruments a head-count is impossible.
Together, the gang work hard to blend traditional folk tunes, funk and jazz arrangements, and a presentation that's part raucous folk club, part music-hall and all topped off with a 60s-style psychedelic delight in performance.
There are stomping sea-shanties, Rudyard Kipling poems set to mournful tunes, and bizarre between-songs banter about how the Romans invented the kazoo.
While many tunes are traditional, with their roots around the world, there are some new tunes. And at least one, Trip To Bucharest, that owes a huge debt to local musician Nick Pynn � it's incredibly close to his tune 'Inverness'.
Two albums into their career, Bellowhead have attracted a loyal if eclectic following. Tonight sees Brighton's army of new age travellers mixing with bearded folk fans, thirty-something festival followers, and a few uncomfortably lost middle class Radio Two listeners. Most of the crowd know the words and sing along at the right times, transforming the sometimes cavernous Concorde 2 into an intimate back room of an old-fashioned pub.
Everyone has a good time: the grooves are infectious, and the good time soon gets under your skin. By the end, the sound of hundreds of people in an act of synchronised jumping and hitting the floor adds a whole new percussive instrument to the sound. It's loud, lively and when Bellowhead are at their best the ground really does move. |
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