Steve Gunn: “Dexterously employing delay and effects, he was able to inject variation and other sound dimensions into otherwise attractive acoustic composition”. Picture: Paul Rhodes
THIS wildly popular Acomb café proved the perfect setting for Steve Gunn and Brigid Mae Power to kick off a tour as part of Bluebird Bakery’s rapidly expanding Rise programme of evening concerts.
The intimate surroundings put everyone at ease, the abstract art by York artist Rosie Bramley providing the ideal backdrop for the performers to slowly weave their magic.
Steve Gunn is one of the most talented acoustic guitar players (as well as a serial collaborator and producer), so it is credit to Joe Coates at Please Please You for enticing the New Yorker to Acomb.
With jetlag tapping Gunn on the shoulder (as he put it), it took a while for him to work his way into his set. By dexterously employing delay and effects, Gunn was able to inject variation and other sound dimensions into otherwise attractive acoustic compositions. At one point during Way Out Weather he risked tinnitus for us, by crouching right down to his speaker to get the (challenging) sound he was seeking before bringing us back to the safety of the original refrain.
Gunn’s approach is subtle, songs take time to perform, and, in truth, time to work their charm on the audience. On The Way and Morning River, both from his 2021 solo album Other You, occupied the first 25 minutes of the set. More memorable was Wildwood, a number about a place on the New Jersey coast that holds a special connection to him and his family.
Brigid Mae Power: “At their best, her songs are heart stopping, emotive fragments seemingly ripped from a diary”. Picture: Paul Rhodes
Gunn is touring with Brigid Mae Power in support. This Irish singer is justly a critical favourite, known for her heartfelt songs and beautiful voice. “Singing around a cough”, she spluttered while tuning, but she still sounded in fine voice.
Without the imaginative studio backings, Power’s material seems simply constructed and varies little. At their best, however, they are heart stopping, emotive fragments seemingly ripped from a diary. Some Life You’ve Known was wonderful and perhaps the best song of the entire evening.
Running it close was Gunn’s cover of the late Michael Chapman’s Among The Trees. Chapman wrote this elegiac number before he was 30, and the melancholy for summer’s past was more universal than Gunn’s pieces. It was nevertheless a treat to see two talented performers up close and be able to hear and appreciate every note.
Review by Paul Rhodes, 1/11/2023
N.B. A launch Party for A Yorkshire Tribute To Michael Chapman, a compilation album curated by Henry Parker for release on the Tompkins Square label, will take place is at The Crescent on Friday, December 1. Taking part will be Andrew DR Abbott, Chris Brain, Holly Blackshaw, Bobby Lee, Dean McPhee, Henry Parker and Katie Spencer. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
On the Rise stage: Steve Gunn performing against the backdrop of Rosie Bramley’s paintings at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb. Picture: Paul Rhodes
Noises Off: Michael Frayn’s on-stage and off-stage comedy on York Theatre Royal’s main stage from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith
HALLOWEEN films and double bills, classic comedy and a time-travelling York legend, a Disney deep freeze and a punk/jazz collision help Charles Hutchinson leave behind October for November frights and delights.
Play of the week: Noises Off, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
MATTHEW Kelly, Liza Goddard and Simon Shepherd lead the cast in Theatre Royal Bath’s touring revival of Michael Frayn’s riotous Noises Off, directed by Lindsay Posner, who staged Richard III and Romeo And Juliet for York’s first season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in 2018.
Structured as a play within a play, this cherished 1982 farce follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On, from shambolic final rehearsals to a disastrous matinee, seen silently from backstage, before the catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Punch Porteous – Lost In Time at All Saints North Street
York legend of the week: Punch Porteous – Lost In Time, All Saints North Street, York, tonight, 7pm.
HAVE you heard or indeed seen the eccentric, evasive York legend Punch Porteous: soldier, philosopher, worker (when absolutely unavoidable), husbandman, connoisseur of ale and now the subject of poet Robert Powell, creative practitioner Ben Pugh and producer John Beecroft’s “multi-media drama experience”?
York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs Powell, Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Powell’s story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary predicament, lost in time in York. While the city shape-shifts around him, he is catapulted unpredictably into different eras of its history from c.70 to c.2023. Box office: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/punch-porteous-lost-in-time/.
The poster for Navigators Art & Performance’s Punk/Jazz explorations at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York
Music, poetry and comedy bill of the week: Navigation Art & Performance present Punk Jazz: A Halloween Special, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm
COMPLEMENTING the ongoing Punk/Jazz: Contrasts and Connections exhibition at Micklegate & Fossgate Socials, Navigators Art & Performance bring together energetic York punk band The Bricks; intense improvisers Teleost; the Neo Borgia Trio, formed for the occasion from a University of York big band; grunge-influenced Mike Ambler and the experimental Things Found And Made.
Taking part too will be firebrand polemical poet Rose Drew and comedians Isobel Wilson and Saeth Wheeler. Box office: https://bit.ly/nav-punkjazz.
The Gildas Quartet: Presenting the String! concerts at the NCEM
Children’s concerts of the week: MishMash presents String!, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow, 11.30am and 2pm
THE Gildas Quartet lead tomorrow’s double celebration of the string quartet in informal 40-minute performances featuring a diverse programme from Haydn to Jessie Montgomery, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges to Dvorak, and everything in between.
Staged creatively to bring the audience into the music, these fun concerts are suitable for ages seven to 11 and their families. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Community film event of the week: The Witches (PG), Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 2.30pm
MAKE It York and The Groves Community Centre team up for a Halloween screening of Robert Zemeckis’s visually innovative 2020 film The Witches. Based on Roald Dahl’s novel, it tells the darkly humorous, heartwarming tale of an orphaned boy who goes to live with his loving Grandma in late-1967 in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis, where they have an run-in with the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Emily Portman & Rob Harbron: Delving into folk traditions to emerge with a fresh sound
Folk concert of the week: Emily Portman & Rob Harbron, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
EMILY Portman, from The Furrow Collective, and Rob Harbron, who performs with Leveret, Fay Hield and Jon Boden, have formed an inspired collaboration to delve into English folk traditions with an intricately woven contemporary sound.
Portman (voice, banjo and piano) and fellow composer Harbron (concertina, guitar and voice) released their debut album, Time Was Away, last November, comprising eight English folk songs and two 20th century poems set to music. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Chris Green accompanying FW Murnau’s Nosferatu
Halloween screaming/screening of the week: Nosferatu: Live Silent Cinema, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
CHRIS Green’s score was commissioned by English Heritage for an outdoor screening of FW Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionist vampire film at Dracula’s spiritual home of Whitby Abbey. Now the composer plays his haunting blend of electronic and acoustic instruments for the first time in York to accompany the first cinematic interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, one that gave birth to the horror movie. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Please Please You’s poster for Steve Gunn’s Rise solo concert
Double bill of the week: Please Please You presents Steve Gunn & Brigid Mae Power, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm
EXPERIMENTAL Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn’s “forward-thinking” songwriting draws on the blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz and psychedelia, suffused with a raga influence. His website says he is “currently somewhere working on new music”, although York will be the first of 12 solo gigs in Britian, Spain and Poland in November.
Wednesday’s gig will be opened by Irish singer-songwriter Brigid Mae Power, whose latest folk-tinged dreampop album, Dream From The Deep Well, arrived in March. Box office: seetickets.com/event/steve-gunn/rise-bluebird/.
Meet York Stage’s young princesses in Disney’s Frozen Jr
Musical of the week: York Stage in Disney’s Frozen Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
IN a story of true love and acceptance between sisters, Disney’s Frozen Jr follows the journey of Princesses Anna and Elsa, based on the 2018 Broadway and West End musical set in the magical land of Arendelle, with all the Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez songs from the animated film.
Producer Nik Briggs directs a cast led by Megan Pickard, Bea Charlton, Matilda Park and Esther de la Pena as the princesses. Malachi Collins plays the Duke of Weselton, Lottie Marshall, Bulda, and Oliver Lawery, King Agnarr. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
In Focus: Say Owt Slam, with special guest Polarbear, The Crescent, tonight, 7.45pm
Spoken word artist and writer Polarbear: Making an apperance at tonight’s Say Owt Slam at The Crescent, York
SAY Owt, York’s loveably gobby gang of performance poets, take over The Crescent community venue twice a year for a raucous night of spoken word and poetry in the form of a stellar slam.
Fast, frantic and fun, a slam gives each poet three minutes to wow the audience. Regular host Henry Raby enthuses: “We love doing Say Owt on a Saturday night, because it’s a party! A poetry party!
“Although one poet will be crowned a Say Owt Slam Champion, this isn’t a bitter battle. It’s a celebration as poets bring a variety of styles and forms. In the past, we’ve had tender personal reflections, hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy poems and fiery political tirades.”
Special guest at tonight’s Say Owt Slam in York will be Polarbear. “The last time he graced our city, Polarbear (a.k.a Steven Camden) was supporting Scroobius Pip and Kae Tempest,” says Henry. “He’s an internationally acclaimed spoken word artist and award-winning writer from Birmingham, whose poetry drips with gorgeous storytelling.
“He talks about people and places with a unique ear for language: celebrating the tiny human characteristics.”
Since first stepping on stage in 2004, Polarbear has performed his work and led creative projects from Manchester to Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur to California, as well as featuring on BBC Radio1, 3 and 6Music, attracting 155,000 views on YouTube and releasing a live album on Scroobius Pip’s Speech Development record label.
A few surprises might be in store tonight too. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/say-owt-slam-featuring-polarbear/ or on the door.
Brigid Mae Power: “Beautiful vocals and ability to cast a spell”. Picture: Eva Carolan
BRIGID Mae Power had been through a difficult week. Alluding to trials on Twitter, she then had car problems on her way up from London. Flustered but here, and very welcome.
Power is a critically acclaimed Irish singer-songwriter who doesn’t really fit neatly into any conventional musical box. Most of her music could not be described as folk.
Her beautiful vocals and ability to cast a spell have drawn favourable comparisons with the likes of Van Morrison or Tim Buckley. While Power has none of Morrison’s poetry, Buckley’s jazz folk sulk mid-period is a better match. Both trade in heart music.
Power was performing solo. The (metaphorically) naked presentation underlined how spun throughout with her characteristic wordless ululations, Left open-ended and spun throughout with her characteristic wordless ululations, the tunes showed their simplicity and sameness too, as well as, by their absence, highlighting how clever her album productions are.
The first half was somewhat underwhelming. A new number, Ashling – a tribute to primary school teacher and traditional Irish musician Ashling Murphy, who was attacked and killed while jogging – lacked the expected emotional heft. Her piano proved a better servant than the guitar, leaving more space for her voice to roam.
Power grew up in an extended Irish family near Wembley, surrounded by music. Her aunt, her earliest musical inspiration, was three rows back, which led to a touching moment.
Playing to a packed folk club, Power wisely leaned more on the traditional elements of her repertoire. The (once rebellious) Down By The Glenside (covered by Mary O’Hara and others) was wonderful and our one chance to sing along. Her cover of May Morning Dew was also spot on (from her excellent covers EP from 2021).
Having recovered from the trip, and one too many chilli peanuts before the start, the second half was a big improvement. In good spirits, the song selection was stronger, showcasing her more melodic side in City Nights. Wedding Of A Friend’s tune belied the startling subject matter, as ever unresolved and left hanging in the air.
The 20-song set list touched on different corners of her back catalogue, but what would the new material sound like? Dream From The Deep Well is due for release in June. Power, however, has been living with the material for some time.
Counting Down (“a sappy one”, said its writer) was full of yearning for home, while Some Life You’ve Known rang true. It will be interesting to see what the songs sound like in sequence with their fur coats on (to quote Sandy Denny).
Power’s quiet power comes from her ability to cast wordless spells. Performed eyes closed, one foot swirling to the music, it looks like the tunes transport her. She doesn’t overuse this feature of her performance or over-sing. It is mood music of the best kind, but it does require you to be in the right, or wrong, frame of mind.
On balance, Power turned the concert around enough to pull us into her world.
