AUK writer Cam Fraser has a distinguished past playing in several bands and in 2024 he released the first album under the Boulder Fields name. Adding a West Coast sparkle to his unmistakeably Scottish sound, it earned praise in many places. When Fraser started talking about a short tour earlier this year, promoted by another of our AUK colleagues Darren Lumbroso, seeing how his fine songs translated to an acoustic stage was always going to be an interesting prospect.
One of Bath’s live music institutions, and now owned by its community, The Bell in Walcot Street, has an unusual T-shaped bar with the stage facing only part of the audience. Fraser and bass playing partner Aly Barr commented that it was going to be “different” playing to a pub audience, not all there for the music rather than their usual club crowd.
Their first set looked back at some songs from his earlier incarnation as Borrowed Books. Highlights included ‘Weight of a River’ and several songs from his “Shorting Out and Longing” album, which, released early in 2020, didn’t get the attention it deserved. Some of these songs have been revisited for a pre-tour EP including a set highlight ‘Altona,’ which is one of the hidden gems of Scottish Indie pop. Most of the songs were introduced by anecdotes about their creation which drew the observation that his songs were sometimes quite sad. The music on the other hand was punchy and dynamic with Barr’s bass carrying a lot of the tunes over Fraser’s vibrant guitar and vocals. Barr also managed to turn a recorded guitar solo into a whistling one, live improvisation at its best. The energy of their performance would have filled a much larger room, and they drew the pubgoers in to listen and join the knot of friends and supporters who had turned out for the gig. The first set closed with ‘Comes Around,’ a quietly epic tune with a slight Simon and Garfunkel flavour and another older song recently revisited as their new single.
Set Two was largely devoted to 2024’s “With All The Other Ghosts” with its fine songs pulled out and given new acoustic textures. ‘Commerativo,’ ‘Rescue Dog,’ the poignant ‘Horse In a Sling’ – drawn from a photo of horses being sent off to the First World War – and the tribute to his Edinburgh home, ‘Wipe Out The Stars’, all shone in the stripped-down live format. ‘Measures,’ a personal favourite, was the standout song here as on the album. Despite his insistence that his songs are sad stories, Fraser’s writing is actually mostly about resilience, as set closer ‘This House Will Hold’ ably demonstrates.
There’s always the concern when writing about a friend’s music that the rose-tinted specs will go on. Boulder Fields won over a less-than-partisan crowd at The Bell and drew praise from the pub staff, who hear music every night of the week. Having hung on to his punk and indie roots (there was even a tee shirt from Fraser’s 80s hardcore band The Cateran on display) and translated that into acoustic folk-based performances, Boulder Fields are doing something just that bit different and brought a taste of the best of Scottish to Bath. As their EP title suggested, you “Kinda Had To Be There”, and I hope you were.
