Eddi Reader live at Shepherd's Bush

The Guardian billed Eddi Reader as 'folk' in their '10 Things To Do' section on Saturday morning, Not unreasonable if you've been listening to the traditional-sounding Peacetime these last two weeks - indeed it's what I was expecting.

Luckily no one had told the band :-)

It was revelation: song after song from an album that I liked-a-lot-but-didn't-quite-thrill-to came alive as Eddi and her talented band thundered through two hours of top class music. Songs leapt out at me. The familar, love-and-understanding Peacetime became a pounding anthem (was that a bit of head-banging I spied from an excitable Boo Hewerdine ?) and the seventies-syrupy Prisons was transformed into an almost unrecognisable (and much better) bass-and-drums-driven piece of edginess. I suspect Roy Dodds might have something to do with it. Whenever I have seen Eddi play with him it's struck me that he drives the performance with his relentless, clever rhythms. Saturday was no exception.

Meanwhile the ballads were injected with a large dose of soul: Boo and Eddi's moving Safe as Houses the intriguing Galileo the charming Leezie Lindsay and even Ay-Waukin-O all were stronger and richer than the album versions.

Eddi had started the evening in underwhelming fashion: unexpectedly coming on stage (dressed in her duffle-coat!) to provide backing-vocals for the support band. It's not often you'll see that, and it silenced the noisy bar, but I'm not sure it was altogether wise: she seemed unsettled when she returned to the stage 30 minutes later, with just Dodds, Ian Carr and Boo accompanying a restrained, stripped down but low-key Medicine.

John McCusker, Alan Kelly and Kevin Mcguire then joined to bring the band up to full strength with the beautiful, lyrical Bell, Book and Candle, before Boo's Muddy Waters headed up sequence of six-of-the-best from the new album, each one better than the last building up to the first climax of the evening, the thumping Prisons, with Eddi growing visibly in confidence throughout, engaging the crowd in the some great banter and gentling chiding us for our English accents, our congestion charge and out trapped summer whale.

From then on th set list weaved, with older, familiar songs sprinkled amongst the Peactime tracks. Prisons gave wayto Charlie Is My Darling and a spontaneous-seeming Moon On The Rain was delightful surprise sandwiched between Galileo and Safe as Houses.

By now Eddi was on a roll. I don't suppose 1 person in a hundred noticed the Frankie Laine titles (Do not Forsake Me, Cool Water, Jezebel) smuggled into Kiteflyers' Hill, but I did. Great stuff.

Peacetime rounded off the session, followed by two encores, and five more songs: the seldom-disappointing Willie Stewart, an a cappella John Anderson my Joe and a lyrical, haunting Allelujah particularly strong.

All round a thoroughly enjoyable evening... Eddi, why don't you come to London more often??

Set List

1. Medicine
2. Bell, Book & Candle
3. Muddy Waters
4. Baron's Heir & Sadenia's Air
5. Mary & the Gallant Soldier
6. Should I Pray
7. The Afton
8. Prisons
9. Charlie is my darling
10. Leezie Lindsay
11. Galileo
12. Moon on the Rain
13. Safe as Houses
14. Kiteflyers Hill
15. Aye Waulkin Ay
16. Peacetime
17. Alleluyah
    
18. Willie Stuart / Mollie Rankin
    
19. Jon Anderson my Joe
    
20. Wild Mountainside
21. Pay no Mind
    
22. Claire

Album Track Count

• Peacetime (11) (just the tricky Shepherd's Song and the secret bonus track missing)
• Robbie Burns (4) (the four best ones)
• First Of A Million Kisses (3) (golden, welcome oldies)
• Angels and Electricity (2) (more please!)
• Mirmama (1)
  
• Candyfloss and Medicine (1) (neglected albums these two)
• Simple Soul (0) (a travesty!)

Review: Peacetime
Review: Boo Hewerdine Live

Peacetime - Eddi Reader

I have to confess a little disappointment when I got my hands on a copy of Eddi's 9th album Peacetime (released 29th Jan): Only a fool doesn't judge a album by its cover and, call me old-fashioned if you like, but doesn't a new album deserve some new artwork? Instead, Peacetime's cover photo is a retread of the cover of St Clare's Night Out .

Did Rough Trade run out of money? Doesn't Eddi know even one person with a digital camera and a copy of photoshop? :-)


Its been nearly four long years since Eddi recorded the Songs of Robert Burns, and six since she recorded an album of original songs - the ineffable, incomparable Simple Soul.

A confession: for every single one of those four long years I've listened to Simple Soul, Angels & Electricity and Eddi Reader more than I've listened to Robbie Burns, And for all that time I have hung on to the hope that Eddi's venture into traditional folk would prove a detour, and that her next album would resume the forward march of her partnership with Boo.

It doesn't, quite, but still - a new Eddi album is not to be sneezed at, and I was as excited as small child on Christmas Day last week when I slipped the disc into the player and myself into something more comfortable and settled down, eschewing the sleeve notes, to wallow in 14 whole, brand new helpings of Eddi's wonderful, rich crystal clear voice.

It's very folksy: 7 of the 14 songs are listed as 'traditional', no fewer than three of them are more Burns, and many of the rest have a traditional folksy feel to them - The Afton for instance sounds positively 19th century, and it's a surprise to look it up and find out it's new.


It's probably too obvious to say: but the best of the trad-folk songs are the ones that are kept simple - Baron's Heir + Sadenia's Air is a fine beginning, with Eddi's voice soaring over a simple guitar in the opening sections, and her Scottish accent coming through delightfully clear, two songs later it would take hard heart not to smile at Mary and The Soldier, and Leezie Lindsay is catchy enough. But it has to be said there are also some duds: Aye Waulkin-O, and Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon seem to me simply bland, and even Eddi the alchemist cannot turn that lead entirely into gold.

Shepherd's Song stands out. It's an odd one and it has had some positive fan attention. It's certainly unusual with it's brass-band opening section, as soon as I heard it, it seemed familiar, reminding me of something. No, not Bailero from Songs of the Auvergne by Canteloube: but Pink Floyd's Outside the Wall.

Am I giving the impression I don't like the album? That wouldn't be fair. I couldn't dislike anything by Eddi and, besides, WMP tells me I've played it 13 times already so it can't be that bad. It isn't - and there's an important redeeming feature: three diamonds in the coal, the three unmistakable songs by Boo Hewerdine.

Instantly recognisable these songs - to me - carry the album. The first one we hear is track two Muddy Water, a 'brief encounter' says Eddi in the sleevenotes, a brief illicit encounter say I: 'Did not do what I should / I nearly lost it good / but the CCTV camera never caught us' Boo's sparse lyrics perfectly capture a time, a place an emotion. Listening in the bath last week, knowing only that there were three Boo songs there somewhere it wasn't hard to pick them out when they came: Muddy Water, Safe as Houses and the eponymous Peacetime with their references to CCTV, to the London bombings breathe some current relevant meaning into an otherwise hard-to-fathom collection.


We've had Eddi Reader sings the songs of Robbie Burns. That was good, but I'm not sure this new album carries Eddi forward as it should. What would be wrong with Eddi Reader sings the Songs of Boo Hewerdine? Until that happy event Boo fans may find pleasure Rosalie Deighton's upcoming album which will feature five songs co-written with Boo (that's two more than Eddi's)

Oh dear, I feel I have been a bit rotten to Eddi. But rest assured she's still one of my all-time favourites, and I'm still going to Shepherd's Bush to see her next month. And I'm still hoping to hear Soul, Lucky Penny, Wolves, Simple Soul, Footsteps Fall and Sugar on the Pill.


Links
- review of Boo Hewerdine gig in November

Boo Hewerdine

An enthusiastic band of the faithful squashed into the noisy back room of the Cabbage Patch pub in Twickenham on 26^th November, for a lively gig from a witty and on-form Boo Hewerdine.

Belying the slightly uncomfortable performance on his 'Live One' album, and his sometimes brooding on-stage presence behind Eddi Reader, Boo smiled and joked his way through a baker’s dozen of songs accompanied by the winsome, if breathless, Rosalie Deighton on vocals, and the talented fast-learner Dave Marks on bass.

The small back-room at the Patch, which doubles as the home of Twickenham Folk Club each Sunday night is intimate in the way a top oven is intimate, and it's hardly an ideal venue for a softly-spoken singer. Indeed, from time to time in the gig Boo, like Rosalie before him was accompanied by the not-so-faint sound of bar chatter the other side of the door, and occasional crashing of saucepans from the nearby kitchen. The lack of space was such that come the interval, the trio were forced to hide, hilariously, behind a velvet curtain - hapless Manie Krugers: ‘off-stage’ but with feet and elbows clearly visible.

Nevertheless the homely surroundings seemed to suit Boo, perhaps in some part accounting for the stronger, meatier delivery than typically heard on his records – and beneath the plaintiveness and sadness easily associated with Boo’s music, on this hearing I detected a thread of anger running through the gig, beginning in a powerful Bell, Book and Candle (complete with introductory Emmerdale synopsis), and continuing through to Slow Learner, normally dismissed as slightly too self-pitying, which came alive with the added bite. (Has Eddi recorded this song? I think it would suit her).

That’s not too say our heartstrings went untugged. Teasing his audience by inviting requests (‘Nope, sorry, it’s got to be the one that’s in my head already’) Boo seized on a thrown-out shout of Ontario to set up a trio of ‘dead puppies’:

Ontario, complete with slightly anomalous sing-along chorus, segued smoothly into Murder in the Dark, Boo's depressing, pessimistic picture of married life, and then (abandoning any pretence of requests now) a tight I Felt Her Soul Move Through Me finished the section. Credited on the album to Hewerdine/Reader/Henderson/Dodds, to my mind this song is nevertheless Boo’s own - and possibly his finest. Written after the death of Boo’s mother and Eddi’s father in just a short space of time, it’s a simple but powerful piece with clever and subtle images. Hearing anything sung live often brings out different aspects, and this time the couplet ‘Too late I landed / To say goodbye’ suddenly struck me as the keystone of this short song.

But it wasn’t all miserable. We enjoyed Patience of Angels and - this being a folk club after all - Boo obliged with a new song Harvest Gypsies written for up-and-coming folk artist, Kris Drever as well as the sentimental favourite Follow my Tears; the choruses of all accompanied by an enthusiastic audience.

Boo finished with Peacetime, which will be the title song of Eddi’s new album out in January. Peacetime’s not a new song - it’s on Anon. I’d never really thought of it as a ‘protest song’ before, but that’s how Boo described it, neatly extending and tying off the angry thread that I detected weaving in an out of all his songs that evening.

Boo has recorded eight albums with Eddi, and he told us that Peacetime is the best of the lot. Listening to the song last night it wasn’t hard to imagine it with a Simple Soul type arrangement, with Eddi’s vocals soaring over the top.

A new album! Eddi Reader sings the songs of Boo Hewerdine, perhaps? A great prospect.

Boo’s on tour for a while longer on his own before he joins up with Eddi in the New Year. See him if you can.

Rosalie Deighton

Set List

Stone in your shoe
Bell Book and Candle
Harvest Gypsies
Patience of Angels
Slow Learner
59 Yards
Honey be Good

Follow My Tears
Ontario
I felt her soul move through me
Murder in the Dark
16 Miles
Peacetime