Excerpts from Swine Lake and other masterpieces

Tonight we will be remembered. Oh yes. Sat amongst a half full Tower Arts Centre audience left spellbound by one of the sweetest second sets I have ever had the grace to hear. Iain Matthews was spot on. A great pity it was not before more people.

It was sad that the Tower Management hadn't got their creative matter better organised and advertised this gig more. They only managed to get a one liner into the local free flyer that is the Bible around here for Winchester gigs. It also irritated me to have half a dozen late arrivals who came down the steps and floundered across the floor in front of the artist mid song to find their seats. Had the woman not regained herself after slipping off the last step and fallen flat on her face it might have been poetic justice for her rudeness in interrupting the artist. OK I'll get off my soapbox now.

I took Iain Matthews first set to be like the ones I have heard great jazzmen do. Getting the chops up as those jazzers call it. Whether it's me or the artist I can never be sure but it didn't grab me like the second half did. Something didn't quite click for me although the penultimate song of the first set could have easily have come straight out of that spellbinding final half. It was a gentle, reflective ballad that stilled the heart. Something about not travelling too far North he sang. His voice just seemed to connect with the guitar work.

Something oiled that second half into perfection. As the audience awaited Iain Matthews to return before them in this unique theatre, the manager undertook to include a couple of stage announcements. The final one to bring an embarrassed Gordon, the soundman, down to the front. "Girls, he's going to be married in a couple of days," explained the manager before presenting said Gordon, he of the long flowing blonde hair, with a special certificate (Gordon had fluffed the sound during the Eddie Le Juene Cajun Playboys gig last night).

"Gordon, how do I follow that?" asked Iain Matthews as he came in front of the audience again. Follow it? The full hour that followed was matchless. I hung on the simple picked guitar work, the turns in his voice and I trembled right down to the toes of my cowboy boots.

Iain Matthews spoke little. Just kept the music coming. So the first half had been well over forty five minutes in length. The second went to an hour.

Don't expect a full set list from me, as I own very few of albums from Iain Matthews twenty album solo career (Valley Hi, he did the Sailing song from it, Stealin Home and now Excerpts from Swine Lake). Amongst his set tonight were a string of unrecorded new songs that had Island poet and music author Brian Hinton exclaiming afterwards "He's still writing, still creating new material, fantastic . . .".

One song about the Spanish sailing to the Caribbean was an absolute gem. As evocatively sung as a Goya painting. Stained in Catholic blood letting, it portrayed the dark side of Spain. Before the song Iain Matthews would tell a story about a tribe of South American natives who held a trial for Columbus and found him guilty as charged. Set up the feelings in the song perfectly.

A few songs came from Excerpts From Swine Lake including Horse Left In The Rain and the one that is currently stonking through my head, Heroes (the live one last night was right there but the recorded version is something else).

Iain Matthews would explain that Swine Lake is the name of the piece of land he bought himself, where he now lives, south of Austin (a map of which turns up insert to the album). He calls it Swine Lake because as he contends an anagram of his name is "I Am A Swine." A girl during the half time break declared at the bar: "That's why he added the extra i to his name, so it fitted the anagram."

"Anagrams often describe the person well," says Iain Matthews. "Andy Roberts, anyone know Andy here?, his anagram is Randy St. Bero. I have a close friend in Austin, Beth Gallacher, I can say this, because she isn't here, but she is a small women with a beak nose and her anagram is . . ."

Matthews appears totally relaxed and at ease. Maybe the first set had been about getting rid of any performing nerves and settling down. Or maybe it was just me not hearing it. This second set, however, reached me fine.

If there was a point tonight, in this second set, when my head and heart turned a series of somersaults it came midway through. Iain Matthews ended a song, the applause died away and he looked dead at us, "Well what do you want to hear?"

"Brown Eyed Girl" somebody shouted. "Oh come on . . ." the artist replied with an "Are you kidding" look in his eye.

Andrew, sat next to me, rescued the situation by calling "If You Saw Through My Eyes". "Phew", came the response, "I'll try . . ." This encouraged two more requests "Rains of 62" and "From Galway To Graceland". "Ok," he said.

What followed was a seamless three song trilogy, or that's how it worked for me. The lights were down, just Iain Matthews caught in a tiny spot, eyes shut, as they were back in 1968, when he sang Suzanne with Fairport Convention, on the cusp of night and daybreak at the first Isle of Wight festival and his soul wide open. It made the hairs on the back of your neck just freeze. On the mass applause afterwards he'd say: "I could hear the piano coming in as I sang that and then Sandy's voice (the late Sandy Denny, the most haunting voice of English music, ever).

Rains of '62 was just another priceless song. Iain Matthews sang of leaving for London in the 'rains of 62'. It was timeless, evocative of an era I grew up during and is right on top of my playlist to grab a version of. Wow. Then he followed it with From Galway to Graceland, sung acapella. I was sure I should know this but not being an expert on Richard Thompson I had to consult the oracle, Brian Hinton afterwards. Hinton looking like a cat with a tub of cream confirmed it indeed was a Richard Thompson song "But Thompson could never sing it as well as that."

I dedicated this to my friends who have been in Galway this summer and wished that they might have been here tonight to hear it. Elvis meets the Roisin Dubh. Superb.

"Ok I might as well do this before someone shouts for it," laughed Iain Matthews. Then he sang a diamond version of Richard Thompson's The Poor Ditching Boy. That took me back a few years to a night when the BBC were involved with real music and recorded Plainsong doing their Amelia Earheart set.

Back of the Bus I think it is called, first time I have heard it, closed the set tonight. Like a baptism of fire. A stonker. A back strummed guitar beat to knock a truck over and a spirited, wailing, eyes shut, vocal that made a nonsense of much of what passes for music on the radio these days.

This small audience stamped their feet and applauded for more. Iain Matthews came out into this unique, round, tiny theatre again. "What shall I sing?" he asked. "Woodstock," somebody shouted. He looked. "It's a good song," someone pleaded. "I know it is, a little dated but a great song. You'll have to help me with it . . ."

I once heard Joni Mitchell do this, her piano rolling across the sunbasked downs of Afton and I'll tell you tonight that Iain Matthews acapella version was just as haunting.

Iain Matthews went for one more song. Formed a chord with is left hand on the fretboard while his right hand hovered over the soundhole of his beautiful handmade guitar, pick ready to strike a chord. Talking about that guitar afterwards he laughed that he wanted to be cremated with it when he dies. He said it was Kinscherff custom guitar made for him by a guitar maker in Austin. He draw a full chord out of it, closed his eyes once more to sing:

"Half a mile from the county fair and rain came pourin' down
Me and Billy standing there with a silver half a crown . . ."

Phew. A Van Morrison song, images of Galway and Iain Matthews artistry just down the road from me in Winchester. And it stoned me too.

Mike Plumbley

Iain Matthews Excerpts from Swine Lake can be found at:
Blue Rose Records

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