It was a good Sunday to catch Richard Thompson O.B.E. and his band. The éminence grise of British Folk-Rock is in the middle of touring his new Dream Attic album and a healthy number of adoring aficionados were present to hear it.
For the uninitiated, Thompson holds a unique place in recent British musical history; he was a founder member of Fairport Convention who will forever be remembered for their seminal album Liege And Leif, which changed the way people thought about English Folk music with its use of drum, bass, electric fiddle and lead guitar to reinvent timeless classics from the English canon. Forty years on and with a newly minted gong for services to music, Thompson proves that you don’t have longevity of this kind without knowing one’s craft intimately. Dressed in his traditional black complete with trademark beret, and accompanied by Pete Zorn, Taras Prodaniak, Joel Zifkin and Michael Jerome the first half of the evening was given over to songs from Dream Attic.
Greed, love and death are all given the RT treatment with stand out songs such as Money Shuffle and Sidney Wells (a gruesome tale of a mass murderer performed in 9/8 time which brilliantly melds past glories to modern sensibilities) well to the fore. As if being a songwriter of notable esteem isn’t enough, Thompson’s guitar playing goes from strength to strength. He can outmuscle many a younger rocker when playing electric guitar and would give the Bert Janschs of the world a run for their money when it comes to his acoustic playing. As one member of the audience pointed out to him in a glorious Welsh accent during the second half of the gig after a particularly imperious guitar solo ‘how did you make me more spine tingly than you did before?’ Thompson politely replied that there is ‘no answer to that’. The second half is given over to his greatest hits ‘with a small aitch’ as Thompson puts it and naturally enough the evening is rounded off with ‘I want to see the Bright Lights again’.
All in all a great evening of musicianship with a notable mention for Pete Zorn on saxes, mandolin, guitar and backing vocals. The standing ovation that the band received at the end of the evening was well earned and even if the majority of the this audience has been admiring Thompson for most of his career, he is living proof, with apologies to Neil Young, that you can keep on rocking in a grey haired world. BB
This was the best gig I have ever seen. Fantastic.