As Carl said on English Heartbeat thread, Ralph was on excellent form last night – here’s a review of the evening. (I’m not going to go into too much detail about his introductions, as I don’t want to spoil the anything for those of you with tickets for the rest of the tour.)
The venue was the Floral Pavilion, which is right on the edge of the Mersey estuary in New Brighton. It was the first time we’d been there, and, in the main, we liked it very much. The only problem with it was that it was unreserved seating – we got there early and managed to get seats in the 2nd row, so we had a good view, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be at the back, especially as the seats weren’t raked, and the stage was low – I think visibility must have been very poor back there! However, sound was obviously more important then vision and that was, as ever, excellent. I was particularly pleased to see a keyboard on the stage, as it’s years since I’ve seen a gig where he’d played one. His new CD ‘Sofa Noodling’ was playing quietly in the background as we waited.
Ralph started a couple of minutes late, and explained that he was going to start with a song he’d written especially for opening performances –
Walk into the Morning. He followed this by saying that he’s lived in London for longer than anywhere else, but that, even so, there’s always something new to find out about it. This, obviously, led into
London Apprentice.
His 3rd song was
The Lamplighter – England 1914. He tied this to the previous song by talking about his love of England, and also told some stories about his Uncles who fought in WW1, including how one of them lied about his age to join up, and how this came to be found out, resulting in his being sent back home.
After this, he began to talk about playing for Rev Gary Davies, and the photo of this meeting which he treasures. I’d assumed he was leading up to Hesitation Blues, but, in fact he then played
‘Reverend Thunder’.( Almost the entire set was played on ’the best guitar in the world’, Miss Gibson, and at this point he told us how she got her name, and also how little remains of his original Miss G!)
This was followed by
‘The Girl on the Jersey Ferry’. Then moved to the keyboard, and, without introduction, into You Well Meaning. I find this a hard song to listen to, because it evokes so strongly the pain that Ralph went through in his 20s, and some of its lines ‘I know every stranger here’ and the last few lines, in particular, are so poignant. I was still very glad to hear him play it, though, as we’ve only heard it live once before. As I said, there was no introduction to this, but as he moved back to the guitars, he explained that he’d written it at a time when he was going through a huge number of changes in his life, which were both bewildering and painful.
The following number was played on the other guitar (another Gibson J45, which he’d apparently bought just in case it was better than Miss G, but he confirmed that she’s still the best!). Our guitar playing friend told us that it was in open tuning, and Ralph played it with a slide for a stunning version of
‘Birdman’ which we think should be a strong contended for the next Songs for Six Strings CD.
Then back to Miss Gibson for
Zimmerman blues, which was introduced by an account of who Angela was, and why the concert for her by ‘His Bobness’ raised questions in Ralph’s mind.
Then, with no comment before or after, he played
‘The Hiring Fair’ – an old favourite I’m always pleased to hear.
Next, back to the keyboard, for an explanation of the title of the tour (An English Heartbeat), leading in, of course, to
England, and an admission as to why he has split up the 2 keyboard songs in his set.
‘Stranger to the Season’ was next, along with details of Billy Connolly’s connection with its composition.
After this
SOL, followed by an instrumental from his new album, which he noodled without benefit of sofa -
Housewife’s Choice. As well as explaining its title, he gave a brief plug for the new album at this point, and a longer one (for which he apologised!) for SF6S. (Incidentally, during this he explained that these 6 CDs will become available one per year over the next 4 years, and that you will be on sale at gigs and the website only, and will include live tracks form the preceding years tour – something which is surely incompatible with this being his last tour / major tour?)
A tribute to Bert Jansch, followed by ‘
A Kiss in the Rain’, then the final song
‘ The Ghost of Robert Johnson’.
Much applause, then the encore -
Somewhere Down the Road. Finished 9:47
As I mentioned, Ralph was on really excellent form. I thought that a tiny bit of nervousness showed in his voice for the first couple of songs, but after this his voice was excellent if understandably sounding emotional in ‘A Kiss in the Rain’.
We took 3 friends with us last night – one had come for the 3rd time, one for his second, and the third for her first ever Ralph gig. All of them where duly impressed. Rachel, there for her first time, commented on how good his voice is for his age, and how much his ‘talking bits’ had added to her enjoyment of the songs. One of the other friends with us is a multi-instrumental player and singer himself, and, as on his previous trip to hear Ralph was blown away with the standard of his guitar playing (not surprisingly!)
I think that Rachel’s final comment summed the evening up for me ‘ he keeps mentioning various artists that he said were better guitarists or songwriters than him – can they really be, or is he just incredibly modest?’
The latter, I’d say!
Naomi
