EOTR 2013 - more from the Garden Stage - Part 1

The Garden Stage was, until 2011, the main stage at End of The Road Festival, by when its audience capacity was becoming a serious issue and therefore the larger and more open Woods Stage was added too. The Garden Stage however remains the most beautifully atmospheric stage, surrounded as it is by Victorian follies, one of the most remarkable of which is in fact almost invisible behind it.
This is a picture across the Garden Stage audience on Saturday evening.

   
On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Serafina Steer, who I had never seen live before, perform on the same stage.

The majority of this set was devoted to songs from her recent album The Moths Are Real.
Not before I saw Joanna Newsom live did I really consider the concert harp and its place in modern music but rather in the context of a sepia tinted throwback - more fool me!  As this was my first day using a new camera for music photography the fact that harpists can't move very far or fast was much appreciated! This evening I have been listing to the album Week of Pines by Georgia Ruth, and that is often led by her harp and vocals too.
   
Back then I never suspected how my liking of, and interest in, Americana and roots music would develop to parallel my long-standing liking of UK and Celtic folk music.
Earlier still, Friday lunch time, Diana Jones had performed solo and took the sun-drenched Garden Stage audience for a trip courtesy of much of her very recent LP Museum of Appalachia Recordings.

I was already aware that it is garnering excellent reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and here it was quite obvious to see why - you could have heard a pin drop during the quiet moments of her set.
   
This is indeed Part 1 - I shall return to the Garden Stage soon with amongst others, Ethan Johns and The Barr Brothers. In the meantime here is another from Daughter's set just after dark on Saturday evening.

Why wasn't If You Leave nominated for the Mercury Music Prize?

Thoughts of forthcoming UK 2012 Festivals.

I haven't forgotten how to write, and I certainly haven't forgotten how to read or listen either. To follow in the coming weeks are some of my thoughts summarized by the post title and also by this lyric...
  
But who cares what the night watchmen say
The stage has been set for the play.
  
Townes Van Zandt is sadly unable to be there in person, although perhaps still present in spirit. On the other hand and in a similar, but mortal, vein Richard Buckner will be appearing at End Of The Road 2012. If that is something the same event also features a legend of Americana before the term was coined, or at the very least widely understood - Van Dyke Parks. From writing lyrics for The Beach Boys album Smile (he lived to see it released, if not as it was originally intended), as amazingly so did Brian Wilson (although not functional as originally intended), much more recently he conceived much of the arrangement and the production of Joanna Newsom's Ys (2006). In-between times, and amongst many other projects, he recorded and released six albums of his own material.

Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom

I don't know if her Australian distributor, Spunk, intended to do this on purpose but it seems to have spilled the beans.

Joanna Newsom live at Latitude 2008

The link might be hard to reach, or have even been abolished, but it certainly existed as I and many others reached it. There are however reasons to think that it is probably genuine...

Her US label, Drag City, posted the following enigmatic cartoon on its site a little while back...
The date, 2/23/2010, is very plausible as albums are usually released on a Tuesday in the US. The Australian release date was given as 19 February, which fits with local release practice. In the UK albums are almost always released on a Monday and all of this has to do with the way weekly sales figures are recorded in the respective territories.

If this turns out to be correct I am more than interested to discover what it sounds like: no doubt her harp and trademark vocal acrobatics will be back but I wonder what else. When she performed at Latitude 2008 she played three then very new and unreleased tracks and performed all of them unaccompanied on grand piano and I remember thinking at the time that two of them were really quite special but sadly I cannot remember their titles.

Here it is...

Latitude and the US influence...

"Is Latitude a typically British Festival?" was another topic that we ended up talking about while there, not that we ever came to a definite conclusion about this, and in so-doing I think we probably got it just about right!

In some ways it is, particularly in the non-music arenas, but although the music programme is certainly predominantly given to UK artists it is not overly so and to prove it this was a truly wonderful choice.

Did it matter that she actually forgot the lyrics to one of her songs? Not at all! In fact she seemed more embarrassed about the genuine applause that greeted her admission of fallibility than that for her earlier confession concerning her nervousness of playing completely solo, and at a festival too, for the first time in over a year.
Latitude was a perfect venue and in the middle of the set she took to the grand piano to showcase a new song, which became three new songs and the second of them was particularly good I think, but what really struck me was that the way she plays the piano made it sound rather harp-like. I wonder if she writes songs on piano, at least primarily, and then transposes and elaborates them on the harp? Whatever the truth about that she was awesome and without-doubt one of the top-three acts I saw at Latitude 2008, which leaves you to guess the other two.

We like to complain that the US market does not, generally speaking, readily take to UK artists. That is true but I think we have a little soul-searching to do here because we are guilty of this too and almost certainly for the same reasons. This is taken from a message I sent to my niece earlier this afternoon:

That said the current wave of US talent doesn't stop there. One of my favourite albums of the moment is not yet on general release in the UK but was released by Archer Records (ARR 3319272-2), a US independent label, in late 2007. Anchors and Anvils is the second album by Amy LaVere who writes, sings and also plays a rather unusual instrument, upright bass, which is like a double bass but even larger!
The album is a seamless mixture of new tracks and a few covers (including Bob Dylan's 'I'll Remember You') and is, on the face of it, a fusion of delta blues and Americana but for the use of Wurlizer, gypsy violin (that lends an eastern European folk influence) and various unusual guitars, plus of course upright bass, which makes it near indefinable. While I dislike none of them I find these two tracks particularly impressive:

• Tennessee Valentine
• Pointless Drinking
  

Now I also want her first album - This World Is Not My Home - too!

Latitude 2008 - first thoughts

Latitude 2008 is where I've been these last few days. This will be brief, because I got back not long ago and some things such as a hot bath and some proper mugs of tea (simultaneously!) came before blogging.

I must say that, despite doubting it could be as good as last year, I wasn't disappointed. More importantly, perhaps, is that the many others that I discussed this with were largely of the same opinion. Everyone can think of a few things that they would change at a festival, were they in charge, but once again, although the weather was rather cool and gave us a few showers, there were no problems with that. It remains so genuinely friendly and real and, although it is a very selfish point to make, we all hoped that it isn't spoilt it by making it too big next year.

In one sense it the biggest little festival and that certainly goes for some of the music too. Sure the headline acts probably sell the most tickets - and Joanna Newsom and Sigur Rós are two that are about as diverse as one could wish for - but that is not to say that lesser known acts are any less important and that is what really matters at Latitude.
I'll mention some of both, and add pictures of my own, in the next week but to start off here is one that I took at the Sunset Stage on Saturday morning:

Wallis Bird live at Latitude 2008.

Also live on the Sunset Stage, but on Friday morning, were the now London-based three-piece 'The Joy Formidable'.

Ritzy (guitar and vocals) trades venom with Rhydian (bass and vocals) to good effect while Justin, drums and vocals but not visible in this shot, ensures that the whole show keeps on track!