Sitting in the gallery of the Buxton Opera House amongst the gold-painted decorative mouldings and ceiling paintings of Rubenesque cherubs you get a vertigo-inducing view of the top of Blair Dunlop's head.
The knowledgeable Rock club reader will not need to be reminded of Blair's musical parentage, which is becoming increasingly irrelevant as at the age 23 he has already released two fine albums of acoustic based, singer-songwriter tracks.
He opens the set tonight with the complex fretboard fingering of 'The Station' from his most recent album 'House of Jacks'. A quick check on the audience's appreciation of Christopher Marlowe leads to ' Secret Theatre', which is written about the playwright. A new song 'No Go Zone' is dedicated to the hysterical news reporting on the state of some British inner-cities. Blair finishes his set with his interpretation of the traditional Scottish ballad ' Black is the Colour'.
Next, Oysterband with their uplifting, rousing songs with an acoustic tradition at their heart, opening with with two tracks from most recent album 'Diamonds in the Water'. The chorus of 'Where The World Divides', “I'll meet you there , I'll meet you there where the word divides” gets the audience singing.
A trio of fine instrumentals is introduced by fiddle player Ian Telfer with,“ We've sold as many tickets as Ken Dodd, that's another one off the bucket list then”, making reference to tomorrow night's main turn at the venue. The power-ish ballad of 'Dancing Just as Fast as I Can', “you can trust in the power of music...I'm dancing just as fast as I can”, features a lovely, twinkly guitar part from Alan Prosser.
Corny joke of the night award goes to Ian Telfer, “Two disciples at The Last Supper “what's that plastic bag under the table” , oh don't worry about that it's just Judas' carry-out” is best read in a Scottish accent.
The collaboration between June Tabor and Oysterband has released two albums 'Freedom and Rain' in 1990 and 21 years later 'ragged kingdom', both contain a mix of arrangements of traditional tunes and covers, one of which starts tonight as June takes lead vocal on Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower', dedicating the “There must be some kind of way out of here” line to the general election coverage.
'If My Love Loves Me' my personal favourite track from 'Ragged Kingdom' gallops along as quickly as the protagonist Annie's horse towards what she believes is her lover's corpse, but in a surprise happy ending ,which folk music is not known for, she resurrects him with a kiss.
June and Oysterband lead vocalist John Jones share lead vocals for “All Tomorrow's Parties”, they share a joint love of The Velvet Underground and this was one of the reasons they first recorded together. A bare beautiful version of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' sung as a duo on which the vocalist are accompanied only by acoustic guitar and cello adds a totally different feels to the song. Both bring to the fore two of our most expressive and powerful vocalists in traditional British music .
For the encore everyone including Blair is back on stage for 'Bright Morning Star', the three lead vocalists taking alternate verses and the whole band the choruses, then the traditional Oysterband set closer 'Put Out The Lights' for a final audience sing along which typifies the mood of musical celebration of the whole night.
Alisdair Whyte
