And here we were, back again, for another night of mad dashing about to hear the maximum amount of music possible from the various Showcases across the five venues in Hackney Central that provide a home for the AMAUK evening showcases held as part of their annual conference. With the wrist band already in place from the previous evening it was straight to Paper Dress Vintage for Ella Spencer who had a varied set in store.
Initially on guitar for a song of brutal passions – all tire slashing and revenge before moving to the piano for a complete contrast in the gentle memories of love song ‘I Never Told You About Oregon.’ Everything was going great, and then it took a turn to the fantastic as Ella was joined on stage by Jerry Joseph for a tumultuous ‘Warning Signs‘ and a truly epic – and new, the pair had been writing in Suffolk at the weekend – song ‘Still Howling Wolf‘. The back and forth of the pair’s, vocals and the passion of the singing, simply superb and it felt like it could have been the performance of the evening already. Definitely a song that need to be recorded as soon as possible.
There was much more that would be excellent to come – in fact straight away. What was surely a placing that’ll never occur again found Willie Watson on the smaller of the two stages at Night Tales – and it was rightfully rammed. In time only to catch the last two songs a couple of thoughts were that the Ex- Old Crow Medicine Show man has the wordiness of a Simone Felice and the easy joy and energy of a Josh Ritter.. ‘Only real Love‘ is tender and stunningly good as a solo performance, showing a little of the Kenneth Pattengale influence from Watson’s solo album. All good things, and it would be great to catch a full set.
It was a short stroll into the large room with the Night Tales 1 main stage where Robbie Cavanagh and band – including the Northern Cowboys (who would appear on quite a few stages) and CJ Hillman on pedal steel and lead guitar. It’s a more straight ahead country sound – with songs about honky-tonks and broken hearts.
Drifting back to Night Tales 2, Luke LeBlanc impressed with songs that drifted between the folky likes of ‘Driving Away‘ to the folky and harp driven ‘Oh My Lordy‘, which turned quite funky towards the end thanks to Caz Falen on bass and harmonies. The sultry ‘Slide On Over‘ was introduced by LeBlanc referencing the new Dylan movie in order to note that he, like Bob, is from Minneapolis although he admitted “I don’t know him“. He’s been honing his craft for some time – since his dad took him to his first open mic’ whilst he was still at school “every Monday, as long as I had my homework done” – and he proves this by playing ‘Never Met You At All‘ which he’d written when he was just 15 and was his dad’s favourite. Set closer ‘Lowry Avenue‘ was a stomping tribute to the joys of running a record store, admiring all the pretty girls as they walk past. They don’t come in though…which isn’t great for business…
Back at Paper Dress Vintage, Norwegian Malin Pettersen had a solo performance, leaning heavily into favourite songs from her 2020 album ‘Wild Horses‘ which has a very Laurel Canyon sensibility on songs like ‘California‘, and ‘Arkansas‘. This last touches on a topic dear to Pettersen’s heart, the lyric of digging for diamonds in the song is a metaphor for environmental destruction, as she notes “we only have one world.” There is a similar linking thought on ‘Speed of Life‘ from 2024’s ‘Seasons‘ – which is Pettersen’s take on the “we are stardust” idea, in a song which encompasses life and death and being an individual space travelling craft travelling through the Universe.
It was a gorgeous set of beautifully sung acoustic folk songs and the set closer of ‘Hope‘ was a very Sixties feeling protest song about the dangers of war and the power of a rising tide of fear keeping people apart. It felt rather topical.
Next on the same stage was Canadian, now relocated to Scotland, Sarah Jane Scouten, who had recovered her guitar from Malin Pettersen. Her set was a full band line-up with The Northern Cowboys once more in the mix. There’s a lot of melancholic nostalgia in a song like ‘Wanderlust’, with the emphasis on the recollected lust, whilst ‘I Was Wilder When I Was With You‘ continues the same path of recollection with a self-explanatory sense of loss.
A song to the virtues of ‘Whisky‘ was helped out by Viv & Riley, who were due to appear later in the evening. It made for a difficult crowded stage but the addition of violin and additional female vocals was worth the effort. The closer of lustful love song ‘Dragonheart‘ was passionate and upbeat – a great way to cap a short set.
The great thing about a night like this is encountering unexpected excellence, albeit it might be tinged with the regret of only catching a couple of songs. Digging Roots at Oslo were one such example of this, a Canadian band who were full on high energy rocking Americana energy with songs about surviving and resistance as representatives of First Nations. Next time the full set, for sure.
And sadly the evening was heading towards the end – but not quite yet. Peter Bruntnell was absolutely superb rocking through ‘Houdini’, ‘Flying Monk’ and ‘St Christopher.’ This is a classic English rock band in the Richard Thompson mould, with top grade lyrics and playing. So why, you may ask. did I slip out half way through? I know, I know, it’s sacrilege but I was very keen to see Beth Bombara who’s post-pandemic album ‘It All Goes Up‘ had been a constant player as had the in the pandemic ‘Evergreen‘.
So, back onto Night Tales 2, and again it was a pretty packed space. Beth Bombara was appearing solo, with guitar, harmonica and limited percussion with a foot-tapped tambourine. Having noted the difficulty of distilling everything you’ve ever recorded to make a set of the best six songs it was slightly surprising to hear Dylan’s ‘Blind Willie McTell‘ but it’s got it’s own groove in Beth Bombara’s hands. ‘Between Lonely Walls’ was a definitive pandemic solitude song, and ‘Evergreen‘ retains a slightly Debbie Harry like wistful optimism. The set closer – a sultry blues number called ‘What’s Keeping You Up At Night‘ lists off climate change, world hunger, uncertainty and precarious times.
After two nights that had seen rapid and pretty clean turnovers of bands on stage after stage it would naturally be the closing band of the two nighst – The Dreaming Spires – who would get all of the technical issues from getting set up on time to a few sound issues and then losing the lead guitar for two or three songs. Yet they battled on through it.
With a set touching all sorts of bases – from their first ever recording; the Byrds like take on ‘Girl From the North Country‘, laughingly described as a Timothée Chalamet song and songs about getting an even break in a society that can feel rigged against you. Whether it’s stealing cars or working in a dead end job on a commercial park The Dreaming Spires were raging against monotony and lack of opportunities and on the exuberant release of ‘Everything All Of The Time‘ making a big demand against a world that is unlikely to deliver a positive response. Their set seemed to be an extended closer for the evening, but singing of a slow train journey was the flag to leave the show…and head for a slow train journey home. What a night – and there was still the excitement of the Awards show to come on the next evening.
