Friday 10 July - first stop on a weekend of musical treats sees 'A' and I at The Duchess where Chris Helme is headlining. Now, the supporting line up was supposed to be Mark Wynn and Tom Euesden, but unless I had a dodgy pint (highly unlikey), I'm pretty sure that first guy's name was Tim and the second support act was Tom Euesden. Anyway, if I've got it wrong, I'm sorry. The layout was a bit odd for The Duchess. Tables were spread out in front of the stage, with clusters of chairs around them. All a bit 'jazz club'.
All three acts were basically one bloke and his guitar, and the first guy; I'll call him Tim, produced a decent performance and had a nice banter with the audience. His voice was distinct, with plenty of variation, and his guitar playing was great. Tom, (the second guy) was an even better guitar player but his voice was almost monotonal, so I didn't enjoy him so much. Sorry, it was probably just his style of singing.
The main event, of course, was York's own Chris Helme, a tireless supporter of music in the city, former member of The Seahorses, solo performer and currently member of The Yards. Tonight Chris was accompanied by two cellists from the "Yardbirds" which added a richer layer of sound to his performance. As always Chris delivered in spades with superb guitar playing and his best ever vocal form. We were treated to a selection of his own material, some from The Yards, and even a few old Seahorses tracks, including; Rollin', Pure, Fireflies, Hello, Cars, Last High, See the Lights, and Blinded by the Sun. For his encore we had his a cappella, foot-stomping, hand-clapping song which I think is called Be my Wife. This was probably the best and most consistent performance I've ever seen from Chris. I highly recommend that you try and catch him on his current tour.
As per usual, we'd finished early at The Duchess and therefore headed off to The Roman Bath, not actually knowing what to expect this week. It turned out to be Alice in Thunderland, a metal/heavy rock band from the Bridlington/Scarborough area. This was both good news, and bad news. The good news was that their noise drove the York race-goers away, the bad was that it also drove the ladies away. The band played a mixture of original material and covers, including; Highway to Hell (AC/DC), Rock 'n' Roll and Whole Lotta Love (Led Zepplin), Radar Love (Golden Earring), and Bang a Gong (T Rex). Actually, I thought they were rather good.
Saturday 11 July - it's always a highlight for us is when we get to see one of our favourite bands, and so it was a full turn out tonight; The Druid and Debbie, 'A' and Lou, Roy and myself all in The Roman Bath to see Breathing Space. The Bath was the first place that lead singer Livvy ever sang in public (over eleven years ago apparently), and other members of the band also have strong connections to this oasis of music. Hence, we are privileged to watch the band, for free. How great is that!
The line-up of BS has recently undergone a bit of a transformation. Guitarist Mark Rowen has been replaced by Liam Davidson (of Mostly Autumn), and saxophonist John Hart has also left. Tonight Mark was unavailable and The Mostlies send on a substitute in the form of Bryan Josh, their mainman in fact. The result of all this re-shuffling resulted in a much rockier, raw sound.
We were spoilt tonight. They delivered nearly two hours of superb music, including You Still Linger, Belief, Coming Up For Air and Searching For My Shadow. The set also included several new songs from their forthcoming album Below the Radar, including the title track, but the best of which had to be the encore, Questioning Eyes, an epic, soaring track that left us all on an incredible high. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new album.
As we were ejected from The Bath we realised that the heavens had opened above us and rain of biblical proportions was bucketing down. We dashed for the cover of Brown's doorway were we whiled away about an hour discussing: music, Tommy Cooper, and the occupation of Ireland by the Norman-English from about 1300 (and the origin of the expression 'beyond the Pale' from the self-isolating defensive barrier of a few hundred square miles around Dublin known as 'the Pale' and occupied by the royal government in Ireland). I even treated my fellow gigsters to a rendition of Steeleye Span's All Around my Hat. I'm not sure how well that went down. Meanwhile, the rain continued unabated, soaking more race-goers, mostly of the female variety, who staggered around St Samson's Square in high heels, higher skirts and clutching teeny-tiny handbags over their heads. On what fun we had. The rain didn't ease up of course, and so we eventually sped off home in our various different directions.
Image courtesy of The Druid
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