Music / alt folk
Review: Seth Lakeman & Kit Hawes, Kingsdown Wine Vaults
It was supposed to have been Bring Your Own Vinyl night at the Kingsdown Wine Vaults, but one of the country’s top folksters was in town looking for a discrete gig so Vaults manager Andy had been happy to oblige. As a last minute ‘word of mouth’ event there was an initial thinness of audience, but with Seth Lakeman’s reputation and local guitar hero Kit Hawes on board, things soon became lively and a roomful of people were treated to a nicely informal evening of quality contemporary folk rock.
Seth and Kit are working on new material for Seth’s next album, it seems, but newbie Kit is also learning his way into Seth’s back catalogue so the set list combined well-established favourites with completely new songs. The chemistry between the two multi-instrumental players was immediately impressive, switching between guitars, banjo and fiddles to create an ever changing range of sounds driven by Seth’s left foot stomp-box percussion. For all their self-effacing references to ‘rehearsing in public’ this was an accomplished performance with very few rough edges.
Seth Lakeman (in camera imposed gloom)
The compelling thing about Seth Lakeman has always been his ability to present traditional song forms and melodic styles in a way that makes them sound completely contemporary, and while songs like Take No Rogues, The Courier and Solomon Browne may rock out, their underlying Englishness is undeniable. That said, The Courier gained a swampy American feel from Kit’s deep reverb Strat and a slow-strutting beat and new songs like How It All Came Down had a surprisingly psychedelic sound redolent of 60s West Coast rockers.
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Stripped down from their full band arrangements the familiar songs were not reduced at all, and in the up-close setting of the small venue the skilful interplay between the easy naturalness of the vocal timing and the tightly disciplined music was especially apparent. The Fairport-recalling Blood Upon Copper, with its up-tempo reel-time coda, and the old-timey Drink To The Day I Die both drew fine fiddle performances. Kit’s clawhammer guitar on the latter hinted at the amazing liquid banjo solo he would later provide for the anthemic Last Rider.
Seth and Kit in the Vaults
When the projected album finally appears – and we know that Mr Lakeman has a new day job with a certain Robert Plant these days, so it could be a while – it will be interesting to see how the songs and sounds have evolved but on the showing of this impromptu performance it’s clear that, in Kit Hawes, Seth Lakeman has found an instrumental asset well-matched to his own exacting standards.
(apologies for poor photo quality due to camera malfunction)
Seth Lakeman will be appearing with Robert Plant at the Colston Hall on November 17
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