Sunday night on the sleepy old Isle of Wight. The Medina Theatre foyer bursting with people waiting to get in to see the Eliza Carthy Band. A bar jammed end to end. Meanwhile back inside the empty theatre a nervous promoter paces around as the soundmen diligently fine tune the support band's mix. Twenty minutes earlier Eliza Carthy and band retired to the dressing room followed by trays of cauliflower cheese bake and chips. Neil, their soundman comes out into the empty theatre. "Wouldn't happen to have a corkscrew would you?"For what Eliza Carthy Band played tonight they could have had the top brick off the chimney as far as I'm concerned. And if Chiz ain't half inched it yet, he and the rest of those gung ho Jones can have the lead off the roof too.
This always had the makings of a classic gig. Get enough people into the Medina Theatre, mix Eliza Carthy with a local support band. Light blue touch paper and stand well back. The business had been done on this one as far back as last July. That old fart at play, Pete Turner, had managed to shove a business card into the hand of Eliza Carthy at Glastonbury.
The final bit before the curtain goes up, the punters patiently waiting for the doors to open, the promoter getting a knot in his stomach, Chiz chatting to Eliza Carthy about a bad stew they both encountered at a festival in Suffolk, the sound check finally coming together are all part of the rich tapestry of stuff the punters don't see.
So the doors open and as the theatre fills, 360 tonight (70 the night before for David Jacobs), the promoter has lost the Jones'. A frantic search, upstairs and down in the dressing rooms till he finds them, nonchantantly awaiting a call from behind the stage curtain.
The Jones boot it off with TV Song and end with a Stones cover that seques into an inspired piece of 'folk' Will The Circle Be Unbroken' sung as acapella as these boys get. Just a short half hour blast from one of my favourite combos of solid self penned classics like Keeping Up With The Jones, Two Into One Don't Go, Pop Love and Days Like Travis.
They even found room for that old John Martyn classic, it is a folk audience right, "Headed down to Memphis on a South bound train". Russ Wendes driving melodic bass lines, Stuart guesting on congas, Mark Spencer deserting a drum kit for hand drums, Simon Clarke on occasional harp and vocals and the irrespressible Chiz pouring his rock'n'roll soul into the mic. Set the evening up perfectly for the Eliza Carthy Band.
All the while the promoter is sitting nervously in an empty bar surrounded by barmen hoping that all is ok. Sure is. Chiz has been raising his beer glass to the audience and saying "You can't drink in here but I can," to which the sharp witted Derek Smith responds from the audience: "I bet that's only cold tea . . ."
The Jones' have a strict, no encore set and on the final number, as the applause dies away, the audience have deserted the Theatre for the bar. In the twenty minutes the bar is buried under bodies, the Jones' have carted their amps and guitars from the stage as a quick changeover ensues. Lucy Adams' clog dancing board has been placed in position. The stage is readied for the Eliza Carthy band.
Last time I saw Eliza Carthy she was in the Waterson Carthy band with her father and mother, just a few years ago at Cambridge. Co-incidentally in the audience is an Islander who was on the same bill that night in Cambridge. One Adam Kirk, once with Sinead Lohan, lately returned from America where he's been playing guitar for Joan Baez. I've not heard Eliza Carthy's much praised double CD Red Rice either. So I come with ears and eyes wide open.
The Eliza Carthy band take the stage. Eliza's hair a vivid bright green, her band, like herself very young. Don't let any notion of age belie what they played tonight. It was truly spot on. Just about demolished plank by plank any idea that there was a dividing line between traditional and the electric ends of the music spectrum. Eliza Carthy and her band rode across labels all night. Even including a cover by Ben Harper to boot.
So she'd sing traditional songs, learned from her auntie the late Lal Waterson, stirred into a cocktail of slip jigging, soaring violin tunes that rode one of the sweetest rhythm sections I have heard in a long time. Eliza Carthy's voice I didn't take to but it was no matter for her violin playing was so stonking good and the band fired and rolling that it didn't matter a damn.
Eliza Carthy's Yorkshire charm had the audience at her feet right from the start. "This is a song from South Yorkshire," she called to which Sheffield's most famous musical Island migrant Keith Gore and his girlfriend Nut Cutlet sitting in the front row roared their approval. "Why did you come this far to see me?" queried Eliza Carthy. They hadn't but when Keith journey's North soon you can bet that he and Nut will be at the next Yorkshire gig of the Eliza Carthy band.
I nailed my admiration to the band's mast during a lengthy instrumental called Russia. I figured they must be a couple of decades too young to have known of the sweet violin playing of one David LaFlamme and the jazzy, summer breeze of his band It's A Beautiful Day. Russia tipped its hat to a whole pile of It's A Beautiful Day riffs.
Don't run away with any idea that Eliza Carthy is the band's only star turn. She's got a band of them. Carthy is one hell of a violin player that is for sure. Just the right balance between virtuosity and pure as driven snow fire. Martin Green's electric piano and accordian were in better shape than his straggled hairstyle. Just sat there all night wringing out blinding solos and dancing lines all night.
Sam Thomas was also something else. He didn't clout the drums he played them. With pace and drive that had both Eliza Carthy and Lucy Adams skitter bugging across the floor. I had discovered earlier that Sam was none other than the infamous Jasper Chipolata whose magnificent folk meets cheesy sixties cabaret band, The Chipolatas had floored us at Cambridge some years ago. The Chipolatas reworking of "The night the Devil's music came to Grassmere" remains a firm favourite in these parts.
Barnaby Stradling's bass found the groove and stayed there all night. Made it all sound so easy but then good bass players can do just that. Spot on. Lucy Adams gave the vocals a wider spread and danced a couple of English clog dances which slotted into the madcap edge of the set.
So Eliza Carthy had the kind of band to take the music anywhere she wanted it to go. It was a fine set of instrumentals, original numbers, old Waterson classics and some unaccompanied songs. It was as a passionate delivery as I have witnessed on the Medina Theatre stage. Had there been a CD stall I think I would have joined the many here looking to buy the Red Rice CD. Unfortunately the lady had sold out her supply on the road.
Judged on the turnout, on the applause and two encores for Eliza Carthy Band plus the impromptu, applause for promoters "Pete Turner, Vic King and the other bloke . . ." (so shouted Mark Spencer from the stage at the end), this was one cracking night on that diamond Wight Island we love so dearly. And the punters like the music went right across the spectrum.
More power to yer fiddling elbow Eliza Carthy and a few more CDs for yer touring bag.
The Other Bloke
The dee, dah, dah dee dee, Derek Smith back to home button