homepage : reviews : 27 November 2003
Thursday 27 November 2003 - the first Phoenix!
Our first event was intended to find out if there was a demand for a club like Phoenix, and if it would attract a large enough audience to be sustainable. Happily, the answer appears to be a resounding "YES"! Mark Gibbens and Simon Heywood give a blow by blow account...
[all photos © Vicky Baker Photography]
The Phoenix Music Club officially opened for business on 27 November 2003, with Simon Dew & Jo Veal making history as our very first performers. And what a beautiful beginning they made it. An atmospheric opening sentence from Simon's alto sax, echoed and augmented by Jo on clarinet, set the scene for 20 minutes of slinky woodwind virtuosity, spiced up by Simon occasionally swapping sax for mandola. Simon and Jo are extremely inventive and thoughtful musicians and treated us to a staggering depth and variety of arrangements.
The audience had really begun to swell by the time Jabadaw veterans Martin Keates and Miranda Rutter took the stage. They indulged us with a foot-tapping selection of tunes on melodeon and fiddle. Solid, driving traditional English anthems blended with self-penned material. Their style reflected backgrounds in mixed English and French traditions and the sound was complex, cohesive and mature - testament to many years' shared musical experience, and auguring great things for the future.
Third up were Sheffield natives, Crucible. Crucible have an amazingly rich repertoire, from four part harmony singing to instrumentals of life-affirming richness. There can't be many bands of any genre capable of producing such a rage of tonal colours and moods. Crucible's material is rooted firmly in the English tradition, but draws in influences from the furtherest corners of the contemporary folk scene. There was here a Scandinavian tendancy towards intense vocal performances, here the "wall of sound" and infectious rythms reminiscant of northern Spain. There is an intriguing, hard-edged keeness developing in Crucible's material and tonight's performance was no exception. Marvellous.
Pete Morton took the middle spot. Pete has to be one of the UK's most prolific and consistent internationally established singer-songwriters, and he combines all the singer-songwriter's traditional strengths: powerful performances with charisma to spare, a low-fi acoustic ethos, a firm foothold in tradition, an ear for a catchy tune, and a deft way with words which allows him to capture and move smoothly between moments of pathos, comedy, well-informed political outrage, and simple good fun - and also a dedicated following, many of whom had turned out!
During the second break, there was a solo clog dance display by Arwen Heaton, opening with a relatively sedate hornpipe, and then catapulting itself without warning beyond Martin Keates' melodeon accompaniment into an unaccompanied display of floorboard-frittering virtuosity that had the crowd hooting and cheering for more.
The evening was rounded off with not a little style by those gurus of groove, the Angel Brothers. The undoubted stars of the show were Dave Formula's "devil's bellows" (pictured left)! Chairs were moved back, hair was well and truly let down and bodies moved involuntarily to the seductive rhythms and tones of this big, busy and beautifully polished good-time band. The only regret was that they couldn't go on all night...
The event was a fantastic start for the Club. We had close to a full house of well over 100 people, and for many it was their first experience of folk or traditional music. We were pleased to see so many people from the Northern Refugee Centre at the gig after we ran an outreach event there just a week earlier. We were also overwhelmed by the support we received from our volunteer stewards, bar staff and performers - all of whom put in huge efforts above and beyond the call of duty.
We'll leave the final words to our first audience:
- The programme:
Excellent!
Forward looking and innovative take on traditional [music] in the 21st Century!
I've never attended a 'folk event' before and was won over
Very good mix of music
- The venue:
Surprisingly good - large space managed to feel intimate
Easy to find. Good Access
- Value for money?
Yes!
- The publicity:
Eye catching flyer design
Great knickers on the website!