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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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| CONCERT
REVIEW by Nick Morgan |
RICHARD
THOMPSON AND HIS BAND
The Roundhouse, London
October 20th 2007
We’re
late. Partly it’s Jozzer’s fault –
he’s been costermongering again and is late
back from Borough Market. But it’s mainly
due to the blocked streets from west to north
London – full of beer-bellied, beef eating,
red-rose wearing, swing-low singing, pint-clutching
English rugby fans, pouring onto the streets from
pub doorways, straining to get a pavement position
and a view of the garish TV screens inside. It’s
the rugby world cup. England are the defending
world champions. Rugby’s coming home. The
Springboks are dead meat fit only for a braai.
Swing low, sweet chariot. |
 |
| “Oh
no” I hear you say – “it’s
bloody Richard
Thompson again – Whiskyfun’s
almost-resident reviewed artiste”. Correct.
And why bloody not? It certainly beats watching
a rugby match. Particularly if you’re going
to lose |
 |
Inside
the Roundhouse is almost a rugby-free zone. Surprisingly
seated (again), our steward takes us on a guided
tour of the balcony (sorry folks – his fault
not ours) before landing on our dead centre stage
seats, immediately below the bar that’s belching
burnt cheese toasted sandwich fumes in our direction
for much of the evening (just as well I guess, given
that the abstemious Mr Thompson is a vegetarian).
|
| He’s
just finishing opener ‘Needle and thread’
from his new album Sweet Warrior – the title
is taken from a sonnet by Edmund
Spenser. "It's kind of a war record”
says Thompson, “not just political war but
also domestic war or relationship war". Strangely
the album has received largely muted reviews, but
in the opinion of this writer it’s one of
his strongest works for a long time – with
a characteristically acerbic take on recent world
events, all the more interesting given Thompson’s
Sufi Muslim faith. There are some cracking songs
– ‘Dad’s gonna kill me’
– filled with common soldier’s slang
(the Dad in question is Baghdad) it’s a no-holds-barred
view of the war in Iraq from the ground. Then there’s
‘Guns are the tongues’, a tale of a
woman who seduces young men and turns them into
suicide bombers, and ‘Sunset song’,
inspired I assume by Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s
masterly Scottish novel of the same name. Thompson
plays all of these, and in addition features ‘I’ll
never give it up’, ‘Mr. Stupid’
and ‘Take care the road you choose’,
from the new album. |
| ‘Take
care’ finishes with a wonderful Thompson solo.
Graceful and fluid, he plays like a painter creating
a picture with a number of sometimes apparently
unconnected brush-strokes, but ending with a perfectly
conceived canvas. Needless to say he’s assisted
more than ably by his band – long-time collaborator
Pete Zorn is outstanding and tireless on vocals,
guitars, mandolins and horns. On bass Danny
Thompson is as exceptional as ever – particularly
with the resonant growling notes he produces on
numbers like ‘Sunset song’. And drummer
Michael
Jerome brings a contrasting blues sensitivity
to the band, in addition to a driving rhythm. It’s
a great set – almost note perfect, and in
addition to his guitar playing (enthusiasts will
like to know that he’s playing the light-blue
Danny Ferrington custom built ‘Ferringtoncaster’
guitar) it should be noted that Thompson’s
singing is as good – if not better –
than I’ve ever heard it. In fact the whole
thing sounds so good that I wouldn’t be surprised
if it was being recorded. |
 |
This
possibly explains the urgency with which the band
work through a crowded set, which in addition to
the new stuff features a trawl though Thompson’s
long career. It goes back as far as Fairport’s
Unhalfbricking, with an acoustic version of Sandy
Denny’s ‘Who knows where the time goes?’
(“Perhaps”, muses Thompson, “when
everyone’s got fed up with Nick Drake they
might give Sandy Denny the attention she truly deserves”).
There’s ‘Bright Lights’, ‘Wall
of death’, the scabrous fashionishta song
‘Bone through her nose’, ‘I still
dream’, ‘Read about love’, ‘Al
Bowlly’s in heaven’, ‘One door
opens’, and of course ‘1952 Vincent
Black Lightning’. He’s supported by
Jozzer on vocals for a lusty chorus of the wonderful
‘Mingulay boat song’ from Whiskyfun’s
2006 Album of the Year, the piratical Rogues’
Gallery, and finishes the evening with a rampaging
version of the painfully cynical ‘Tear stained
letter’. |
| We
emerge just ahead of the Roundhouse throng, smelling
strongly of burnt cheese. Outside the streets are
silent. The broken bottles, drunks slumped in doorways,
luminous pools of vomit, all speak eloquently of
a national triumph narrowly (and thankfully) averted.
Well done Springboks. |
| But
no offence meant, there’s only one trophy
winner tonight – and that’s Thompson
and his magnificent band. - Nick Morgan (concert
photograph by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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