6 Years on...
Birmingham Town Hall – Fri 14th May 2010
Prefer to Listen? Go here:
https://soundcloud.com/richmusgravesoundcloud/6-years-on-birmingham-town-hall-fri-may-14th-2010
It wasn’t as if I felt I shouldn’t be there. There was no discomfort or unease. Or maybe a little. I was happy enough in this city, this venue of many memories, particularly of Crowded House; Nick and Paul’s onstage bickering, grins as wide as an Antipodean sky whilst Neil Finn waited, all school-teacherly for them to settle down and play nicely. Was it really 20 years ago?... It was just that there were a lot of Folkies and Hippies in the audience tonight and I felt conspicuously undenim-ed in my dark suit, black shirt and bootlace tie. It was a look that was meant to convey my urban sophistication and rock credentials but in this crowd I looked exactly as I felt; like a sore thumb. Note to self: Never even try to think about what to wear for anything, ever, again.
To my right sits my brother-in-law, another Neil, without whom we would not be here, in the non-existential sense; this being his “birthday treat”. He is a John Martyn uber-fan and I am at least a bewunderer. We attempt to talk about similar artists to John but quickly decide there aren’t any.
“ What about thingy? He’s sort of “John Martyn-ey”
“John Martini?”
“Or Martynesque, at least”
“Martynique”
And so it goes. Chortling pathetically at our own puny puns, we agreed at least that John had been a highly individual artist. Quite ‘unesque’ in fact.
Chortle, chortle, chortle. Nervous, time-killing conversation. Nervous? Oh yes, I always get nervous before a show. Unless of course I am in it. That though is another story, as yet, thankfully, unwritten. So here we sit, waiting for it to start, not a clue what to expect and trying to stave of the suspicion that it won’t in fact be as great as we hope, a feeling so familiar to the collective British peoples, best described as ‘anticipointment’.
Sitting to my left, her brilliant mind obviously pondering along the same lines, my wife digs her oh-so-exquisite elbow into my ribs with time-served expertise.
“So who’s actually on then?”
“John Martyn. It’s a John Martyn gig”
“Despite the fact that he’s dead?”
“Oh yeah, well. He wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him…surely…”
We discuss what we do know. The evening is to celebrate John’s life and to raise money for his wife. Which one, we don’t know. Eddi Reader is on the bill. I know her from Fairground Attraction but am less familiar with her newer, rootsier, folky work, my own roots being firmly planted in Jazz and rock. Who else? The bloke from The Icicle Works. I remember them and think I saw him at Glasto’. Anyway, it was all going to be great. The house lights dimmed and on to the stage strolled Danny Thompson. I had seen Danny play with both John and with Pentangle and knew him to be king of stand-up bass and one of a very few British musicians who was effortlessly cool; that level of cool one can only achieve without actually trying in any way to achieve it. He was even dressed like me. Huge cheers all round. It was all going to be okay. I leaned over to my brother-in-law.
“Happy birthday man”
For the record it was a somewhat chaotic, never knowingly over-rehearsed lucky bag of an evening. The door was left un-locked for Mr and Mrs Cock-Up to come calling and sure enough, they did. They were my favourite bits. Well almost. It should also be noted that Mr and Mrs Inspired-Creativity walked right in and made themselves at home too. It was, shall we say, an evening of sharp dynamic contrasts. So it was that we laughed and we cried and doubtless reflected on our own memories of John, such as when after I had travelled many a mile to see him, he walked onto the stage 2 hours late, utterly shit-faced and then directly off that same stage’s edge, into the audience, injuring himself and ending the evening before it had begun. I remembered also seeing him in 1981 supporting a Peter Gabriel/Genesis reunion gig and playing songs from “Grace and Danger”, my favourite of all his albums. And there’s the rub-a-dub. Not “Sunday’s Child” (which I like) or “Solid Air” (which I also like) but “Grace and danger” (which I adore), a jazzy/rock album without an acoustic guitar in earshot. I was happy enough with acoustic guitars, with or without exotic tunings, of course I was. I had even employed such things myself and know well enough not to throw out the songwriting baby with the bathwater of my own prejudice. I knew then as I know now that if the song and the performance are good, I can connect with it, be touched by it, whatever it’s musical arrangement or stylings may be. So like I said, it wasn’t as if I felt I shouldn’t be there. And yet…
Onto to stage now wandered an unnecessarily tall and long haired young man. I sensed my inbuilt, irrational “taste” alarm was about to erupt into full vigour. My being only five-foot-eight and balding is absolutely nothing to do with it I assure you. What bothered me most was this: He looked like a folk singer. He was though, rather beautiful, with a kind of dishevelled elegance and appealing, open, vaguely pained expression. He looked like a man who knew too much for his age. Which was interesting but nonetheless my expectations were not great. He messed about with the bug on his guitar, tuned and retuned, capo on fifth fret. And it was a 12 string. In the hiatus another angular blow to the ribs found it’s mark.
“Who’s this?” Carolyn whispered.
“Dunno”
Neil leaned in from the other flank.
“Scott somebody. Or Matthew. Matthew Scott. Something like that”
Finally ready, the object of uncertain nomenclature began to play “Over the hill”.
And here I need to pause and reflect on the great mysteries.
Why do we connect with or disregard, love or despise, sanctify or vilify those things and people we do? What’s going on in our brains? It’s just chemistry, right?
And we’re back in the room after that helpful period of reflection.
What would have been helpful to me, what would have been appropriate, would have bee-n an appearance by Keir Dullea, levitating about in his Dave Bowman spacesuit saying “Don’t worry Rich. Something is going to happen. Something wonderful…”
Alas though, he didn’t materialise. So it was that when I entered the time and space occupied by the occasion I first saw and heard Scott Matthews perform, I was somewhat unprepared. Somewhat. Like the Sun is somewhat large, like grass is somewhat green, like The Pope, is indeed, somewhat of the Catholic persuasion.
Directly in front of him, 3 rows or about 10 feet away, I sat.
It began.
Despite his unfamiliarity with performing the song, he decked occasional hesitancies with solid blows to head and heart, his guitar playing cultured yet unmannered, his voice like smoke, twisting, both urgent yet languid, revealing all the lonesome regret that lies just beneath the bravado of that song, that song I heard so often and yet, it suddenly appeared, never before.
It ended.
Time unsuspended itself, coughed apologetically and a form of reality was restored. All around me applauded. I’m not sure if I did. I just looked at my wife and tried to think of something to say. I wish what I said had been positively Wildean. I wish I had said something erudite and shimmering, resonating with profundity, so beautiful that angels would weep to hear it said.
Ah well. La-di-da.
What I actually said was this:
“Fuck my dog with a wire brush!” and then “Who is this guy?”
At this point, dear reader, whilst assuring you that I have never performed the act described in my former utterance, the search to find an answer to the question posed in my latter is still, even all these intervening years, one on which I am most resolutely engaged.
I do suggest you join me.