The first show of the new year at the Newbald Village Hall, and the first of a new venture for early evening Sunday concerts, with the doors opening at 4.30 pm and the gig commencing half an hour later. First impressions on arrival were very positive with the carpark packed beyond capacity, forcing many of the stragglers to leave their vehicles on the grass verge or out on the streets, a view that was echoed in the hall with not an empty seat to be found. All this bodes well for future teatime performances and proves a testament to the hard work put in by local promoter John Tomlinson and his team of volunteers.
Of course, you also have to attract quality acts and there are few singer-songwriters currently gracing the UK music scene creating as much of a buzz as tonight’s attraction. Kent-born Sorrel Nation has been building up a head of steam over the last 12 months with multiple new releases including a single that featured Steve Balsamo last May, followed by a live EP entitled “Thirty Summers” in July, before her critically acclaimed debut album “Lost En Route”, saw the light of day in October. During this period she toured extensively both as a solo performer as well as with her band accumulating many festival appearances including the Isle of Wight, Black Deer, and Cambridge. Despite tonight’s show being principally a solo event, Nation was supported throughout by her partner Theo Holder on cello and backing vocals.
The duo took to the stage for the first of the evening’s two sets suitably attired for the stormy weather that had greeted the congregation on arrival, jumpers, and jackets to the fore, though the newly installed heating system, part of the hall’s recent renovation, would gradually see layers cast aside by the interval. The stage was sparsely decorated with two microphone stands, one chair, and of most interest a table replete with a small selection of glasses, a mug, and a flask. Tonight’s opening number had originally appeared as the first track from the 2021 EP release “Walk With Me”, entitled at the time simply as ‘Intro’, but after having had a new section added, extending the song to almost double in length, the track has been retitled ‘Sweet Wine’. Here the audience was immediately introduced to Nation’s impressive vocals, possessed of a purity and controlled energy that in this instance drew comparison to Jeff Buckley, as she stood stage front caressing her acoustic guitar with a combination of picked and strummed chords, while Holder sat further back, head bowed and adorned by a statement-making hat, coaxing a sublime level of warmth and tension from his cello.
The remainder of the first set was made up of songs from the new album along with a couple of tasty covers astutely chosen to highlight the variety and range of Nation’s vocal delivery. ‘Living Free’ and ‘Trouble Again’ supplied the opening salvo from “Lost En Route”, the former, a reflective meditation with its lyrical narrative pondering one of life’s conundrums, the right age for leaving the rat race and chasing your dreams, the latter an uptempo track that features some fine harmony vocals from Holder, something that would feature strongly throughout the two sets. Last year’s live EP “Thirty Summers”, released to celebrate Nation’s recent landmark birthday, offered up a couple of relatively well-known and well-loved cover versions, which can often be a brave shout, and few can be more challenging than the next number in the set. Sandy Denny’s classic composition ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’, is nearly sixty years old and over the following decades has been covered and recorded in a myriad of styles and interpretations, very few ever coming close to emulating or understanding the sagacious pathos of the original. However, for approximately five minutes, tonight’s congregation were transported back to those halcyon days of the late sixties, with the purity of Nation’s vocal delivery and the uncluttered simplicity of the arrangement worthy of comparison to that of the late folk icon. The second of the cover versions was a much newer number that had been brought to the duo’s attention by a mutual friend, musician and member of ‘The Magic Teapot’ music circle, affectionately known as ‘Big Tom’, who sadly passed away at the end of last year. The song in question was ‘North Country’ from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’s latest album, the Grammy-winning “Woodland”, delivered here with a real sense of reverence.
There was time before the interval for two more songs from the new album which had been recorded at studios in Norfolk where the band had availed themselves of the wide range of musical instruments available, including an old Italian Reed Organ that had been rescued from a dump. Tonight’s comparatively stripped-back ambiance allowed for a greater focus on the narratives of which ‘Eggshells’, one of the album’s highlights, benefitted, with its impassioned heart-rending poetry enveloped within Nation’s controlled delivery building to a crescendo as Holder, along with some spirited contribution from the audience, supplied the subtle backing vocals, before the album’s title track, a tale about forgotten friends and a time spent in Australia brought the first set to a perfect conclusion.
After a short interval for refreshments that allowed the opportunity for many of the audience to avail themselves from the merchandise stand and meet and chat with the evening’s headliners, the second set resumed with a song that was released last May as a stand-alone single. Entitled ‘Life Has No Reason But Love’, the track was a co-write with the aforementioned Steve Balsamo, its narrative focussing on the issue of mental well-being and awareness, something that Nation had witnessed first-hand through a close family member and she dedicated the song to all those that were struggling. Performed unaccompanied, this heartfelt number was another of the many highlights from the evening’s performance. Two of the new album’s strongest numbers featured early during the second half with both ‘Old Man’, where Holder again contributed some fine backing vocals, and the excellent ‘Crazy For You’, a song that, even in this stripped-back form still wonderfully demonstrated the intensity and control of Nation’s voice. In between there was time for another cover, this time from the great James Taylor and his classic song ‘You Can Close Your Eyes’, before a return to the self-penned numbers and ‘Wild Solitude’, written during a holiday in Wales and featuring a tasteful cello intro from Holder.
It transpired that tonight’s show was only the second performed as a duo, and the first to feature Holder with a microphone, which all came as quite a surprise, with the most perfect harmonies, not to mention the warm and humorous rapport between both the two artists and the audience, Holder growing more comfortable and confident in this role as the show progressed, providing the perfect foil for Nation that all suggested a stagecraft that had been years in the making.
There was still time for two more songs from last year’s album with the atmospheric ‘The Way The Wind Blows’ followed by a rousing rendition of ‘Dead Man’s Road’ with its rhythmic pulse and open tuning creating a certain Zepplin-esque vibe, with Nation connected with her inner blues-rock soul, providing a powerful conclusion to the second set. There followed a slightly awkward moment while the duo seemed somewhat unsure whether or not to leave the stage as the audience bayed for an encore, Nation departing stage left as Holder remained seated on stage, much to everyone’s amusement. With smiles all around, and decorum restored the duo treated the congregation to a cover of the legendary sixties band Jefferson Airplane’s classic hit ‘White Rabbit’, which was delivered with all the subtlety and energy of the original, reinforcing the impression that beneath the exquisite folk-infused ambiance of the evening’s set and the wonderful selection of songs, lies a rock ‘n’ roll spirit. One thing is for sure, whether it be solo, as a duo, or with a full band Sorrel Nation’s career is most definitely on an upward trajectory.
