We went off to The Bedford last night to see some live music. I was drawn there by the chance to see Andy White for the first time for far too many years, but there were too other acts on too.
First up was Foy Vance. He’s obviously heavily influenced by Luka Bloom (which is no bad thing) and he puts a lot of passion into his performance. It’s all most enjoyable until you listen too closely to his lyrics – which are all a bit “sixth form poetry”. Halfway though his set be brings on a friend to sing a couple of songs and it just gets worse. The songs are called “Welcome to the Future” and “My Father’s Son” and the lyrics are about as cliched as you’d expect givn those titles.
Andy White is on next. Since I last saw him he’s gained a backing band. She’s called Alison Russell and she sings backing vocals and plays clarinet. It all works really well in combination with Andy’ voice and guitar. Given that Andy has written ten years worth of new songs since I last saw him, it’s not really a surprise that I don’t know many of the songs, but most of the new ones have the instant catchiness that I associate with Andy’s work.
The final act are called Second Person and they are here to record a live DVD. To make sure the event goes well they have filled the venue with friends, family and fans. I think we were probably the only people there who didn’t know who they were. Given that the rest of the evening had been acoustic and a bit folky, it was a surprise when they started playing music that sounded more than a little like Portishead. In fact, at one point, I was seriously wondering if this was Beth Gibbons’ new band. They started with a very strange cover version of the Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” which didn’t go down at all well with my party of Cure fans. To be fair to them, they got better from then on, but it’s like listening to Portishead – one or two tracks is quite nice, but a whole album (or, in this case, 45 minute set) is all too much. Every song sounds too much like the last one.
So if you ever get to watch the Second Person Live at the Bedford DVD and spot a group of three people in the middle looking distinctly unimpressed – that’s us.