NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
Vin Garbutt
Vin Garbutt enchants after
2 year's absence
It must be just about time for a new generation to hear music of serious reflection. Or even humorous reflection, come to think of it, anything that might just elicit a few more thought processes than physical sensation, as nice as that is.
There was more than enough thought stimulation for the crowd gathered last Saturday night at the King's Head in Allendale to hear Vin Garbutt after a 2 year absence. And it was delightful to welcome a very very young folkie too, of perhaps 6 months age.
So the opening songs by the synergising duo Terry Conway and Liz Law helped to set the scene of fine musicality intermingled with high sensitivity, especially on the riposting kangaroo number, and then the sweet, 'Waiting for someone to sing me to sleep'.
Even with the extra amplification, the wee bairn in the back was all cheerful ears when Vin's voice thrilled like a seasoned instrument on his opener, 'Away from the pits I'll be bound'. But it was Vin's cheerful accommodation of new ears and a new voice, in a quirky, haunting aside after his lament for 'John, you have gone', that really crystallised the tone of the evening.
Along with cheeky patter describing a possible swampy scenario for the 'Green mossy banks of the lea', Vin cranked up his memorable protest song, 'Where the hell are we going to live' and then segued into a session on a couple of his apprentice whistles, having lost both his favourite and second-favourite on one of his world tours.
If there is a better, more inspiring song to drift off to innocent sleep on, then 'I could have been a giant, said the bonsai tree' , I have yet to hear it, and sure enough, the wee one was fast asleep before the break. But for the rest of the excited audience that song was just a harbinger of their fondest wishes.
It was an instructive comment on our knowledge acquisition today, in 'The truth is irresistible', that lead off the second set, and then moving by request from tough pink tarmac to the fragile pink salmon of the River Tees, Vin delved into ecological mode. Sure it was only green re-cycling motivations that informed the families in Middlesborough who reclaimed their underwear off the back of the boat, and the 'Rose of Tralee' was only a garden flower.
As if the problem of poverty, or a lost lover, ever affected 'no-man'. Or the pathos of watching the Richmond, last boat built on the Tyne, slipping out to sea, could make the 'Time and tide wait for No[r]man'. That's how it is at a Vin Garbutt gig; you're seriously cogitating on one theme, say based on 'The Troubles of Erin', with its deeply emotive line about the elderly father holding out his hand to the killers of his girl, or When the tide turns -- and suddenly you're killing yourself laughing about the inoffensive whistles of shame.
But after the laughter, just as we heard in the encore, the thoughts persist, even the painful ones -- though time takes the pain away, the meaning of life, love, and the universe still is a mystery to me.
