“Oh God!” you say, “Not folk music?”

“I like Bellowhead”.

“Who?” you ask.

“Bellowhead” I say “a contemporary English folk group”.

“Oh God!” you say, “Not folk music?”.

Or at least that is how I imagine most conversations with the uninitiated would pass on the subject. But Bellowhead is not your average folk group. Oh no. It is an 11 piece folk ‘big-band’ that has headlined concerts for a dozen years and is now, sadly, towards the end of its farewell tour. It is also a band about which The Independent said: “With the exception of The Who, Bellowhead are surely the best live act in the country”.

One of the group, Paul Sartin, has described them thus: “We’re not a period piece band. To be a party band, the music has to be accessible, and therefore contemporary … we use the songs as a template, chuck everything into the mix and see what comes out”. They certainly do and it ticks the “contemporary take on tradition” box that brings both relevance and a wider audience to a sometimes staid cultural heritage.

I mentioned to an acquaintance that is ‘in’ to folk music that I was going to see Bellowhead at the London Palladium. A fairly dismissive reply (“I saw them, they’re just noisy”) immediately identified him as a straw-sucking, acoustic-only, 1960s traditionalist who would gaze softly into the distance whilst listening to the semi-strangulated vibrato of a nasally-congested singer seeking to remove earwax at the same time as spitting out more words than the phrasing within a melody could possibly dictate. Personally, I would rather have a good night out.

And that is why I travelled with ‘Management’ from Aberdeen to the London Palladium where we took part in a shindig of the first order. I won’t go into detail because it was one of those occasions that you had to experience; words alone could not sum it up. Two quick points though: thankfully, the audience appeared very ordinary when contrasted against the imagery of shirtless collars, waistcoats and neck-wringing bandanas that normally conjures up the attire of a stereotypical traditionalist, but more importantly, much more importantly, everyone left grinning widely.

Ready to go ...
Ready to go …

It was terrific. You can get a taste of them here, read about the Palladium concert here  and find out more about the band here.

Saturday Night at the Palladium!
Saturday Night at the Palladium!

Published by

Avatar

LanterneRouge

😎 Former scientist, now graduated to a life of leisure; Family man (which may surprise the family - it certainly surprises him); Likes cycling and old-fashioned B&W film photography; Dislikes greasy-pole-climbing 'yes men'; Thinks Afterlife (previously known as Thea Gilmore) should be much better known than she is; Values decency over achievement.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.