Friday 24 June 2011

north of York, on train 3 of 4 home from Aldeburgh
As usual I’ve been too busy to write anything here while lots of interesting things have been going on, so I’ll try and tell a story in pictures instead.  Having shelled out the cash on travelling this part of the journey 1st class as I knew I’d be tired and have lots of work to catch up on, my seat is broken (it reclines unless you wedge your foot against the table), the power socket doesn’t work, the wifi is kaput and there are two stereotypically loud Texan tourists sitting opposite getting increasingly drunk on the free booze. Thanks East Coast Trains. I did get a nice piece of cake and a cup of tea when I boarded though.

The day started very well indeed: I waved Alison off to Germany and Bill to Inverness, and fitted in a luxurious dip in the sea (my 4th of the week) with Nick and Mairi, where it was warm enough just to stay in the water without really getting cold. Then while standing in the sunshine at Saxmundham station waiting for train no.1, who should come smiling along the platform to catch the same train but Shirley Collins. If that happened more often, I’d spend more time on station platforms.

But to recap some events of the week … at the very moment of our arrival in Aldeburgh on Monday night my phone rang and it was Martin Carthy with the very sad news that Mike Waterson was now very ill indeed, and Martin understandably wouldn’t be able to join us. So when we reconvened in the Britten Studio for the rehearsal where we’d planned to work on Martin’s songs, we worked on some new material to get our adrenaline going, and to remind us of the process of working up an arrangement from scratch with 10 people.  Olivia had revised most of her songs anyway, so we certainly wouldn’t just be replicating our work from December.  It was very strange being back in the Britten Studio again, like we’d never been away.

Jim Moray, bathed in sunlight, teaches us Lord Douglas, with its killer guitar riff

Alison prepared us a communal meal back at Elizabeth Court (or ‘the old people’s home’ as Olivia calls it) for old time’s sake.  I particularly enjoyed confessing mutual enthusiasms for 1980s King Crimson, Gryphon, and much else with Jim.

I think it was the following evening after fish and chips and some excellent Adnams beer, that Alasdair suggested a game of Scrabble, and Pamela’s first rack of tiles looked like this.

Proof that CD shops do still exist (just)

Alison and Bill in one of many morning swims

Aldeburgh just before the thunderstorm hit on Thursday morning - it's still sunny in the foreground

set up on the Maltings stage

It’s just as well that Shirley could join us, or we’d have spent the pre-concert public discussion with Bill Lloyd all agreeing with one another. The thing is, that’s what musicians tend to do in rehearsal: we spend time and effort seeking out things that we can agree on.  Shirley was certainly the only one of us with the guts to say that she didn’t like what Britten did with traditional material, say this on the stage at Snape Maltings, and get some applause.

From the gig, it would be unfair to single out one moment, but the groove that Ali set up for False Lover John grew into something suitably primal and inexorable: we all came off buzzing from that at the interval. Having 10 people all playing and digging in, and yet there still being plenty of space for dropping in of unexpected extras and spur-of-the-moment ideas, was pretty exciting. And being in front of an audience increased everyone’s focus enormously, so I got a strong sense of heightened awareness and listening right across the stage.  Having Ray Davies sitting in the second row focused the mind a bit for those at the front too (coincidentally, the drunk Texans have been singing Sunny Afternoon).

my setlist (yes this was version 5.0)

It was good to have got the dulcitone into a roadable state: the flightcase had arrived at home on Friday morning, just in time to get sent down to Aldeburgh on Friday afternoon. I tried out the internal LED lights, but the tiny 12V battery had pretty much died by the end of the gig so the effect was embarrassingly feeble: time for a rethink on that one. By the time I’d packed it and the harmonium away into their cases, Mr Davies had left the artists’ bar upstairs, but I got to sit next to Shirley to enjoy my post-gig beer. Who needs two English singing legends at once anyway?

This was a very special post-concert beer as it was also to celebrate the end of my short-term immutable deadlines for a couple of months or thereabouts. I’m still stupidly busy but largely deadline-free until our next gig in August, and that’s definitely cause for celebration.

Nick after this morning's swim