Gig review: The Folk Upstairs @ The Zanzibar
Friday 26th February 2010
The Folk Upstairs – The Return of Dead Poets Society
With its closed doors and the wooden squeezing stairs leading to the spacious but small looking first floor, the stage of the Folk Upstairs appears to be like a little secret attic. A hideaway unknown to the rest of the world where only the chosen ones, who’ve been told about this, will be welcome. Abstract paintings on the wall, concert posters on the ceiling and Paul Simon softly singing in the background, it’s all part of a place best to describe as the low-fi return of dead poets society. Literally, because you won’t find this kind of intimate atmosphere, where musicians and poets meet, anywhere else.
‘The only thing I’m nervous about is that some of the people have never performed live before.’ Rachael Dunn, long-time Zanzibar performer and first time organizer of the Folk Upstairs sessions, whispers softly. Her voice hurts a bit, she claims, but it might just be the excitement of tonight’s show. Only two years ago she made her live debut, culminating this evening with her album debut. Albeit an unofficial, non-party launch, a lot of friends and family showed up, as well as other musicians she performed with before, making it somehow right that she’s responsible for the bill tonight.
Starting off with a set of hardcore acoustic songs is Matt Reekie, a young songwriter whose most obvious weapon was his passionate singing and aggressive guitar slapping. As with most others here tonight, he writes from experiences but also knows how to tell little stories in its own, as if they’ve been made up completely. Though he’s not the one to show off his guitar abilities, his aggressive beat, effective finger picking and his ‘driving on a lonely Saturday night with the radio on’ kind of voice worked out fine. Opening up the evening perfectly with a combination of emotional songs, stories and a great acoustic version of the Moody Blues’ ‘Nights in White Satin’, he showed that good songs are the ones that go down well when just playing stripped down from all its pretentiousness.
It’s the lack of the pretentiousness that made this night so special in the first place. After Poetess Maria, whose Dylan poem could not have been more appropriate here, the time was right for second acoustic act Vinnie T Spen and his witty remarks on society and, more often, the Smiths disco downstairs. A Liverpool Acoustic regular with the noble intention to be loud enough to overrule the disco, he did ironically shine out in subtleties. Subtle melodies – James Taylor would come to mind – subtle guitar playing, and above all, subtle interruptions (‘Now that the noise downstairs has stopped, here’s a loud one’). With his set of political songs, love songs and even a slightly sarcastic combination of the two of them (‘a love song to bankers’), Vinnie T Spen brought in not only some great songs, but also a more loose attitude towards the gig.
Whether intentional or not, the failure of the light seconds before the haunting and amazingly passionate delivered poem of Pete Crompton made the atmosphere even better than it was before. Only served by a pathetic light bulb on a stick, Crompton’s Horror Show went down quite well, and made way for tonight’s long-awaited highlight; Rachael Dunn’s album launch.
While stating to be nervous before going on stage, reality seemed to be different. By choosing songs she never performed or released before – one of them even being a rearranged piano song – Rachael didn’t take the easy way tonight. Humble as always (‘I’ve got an album out by the way, I should’ve mentioned that’), she got the audience off their feet quickly and moreover, even people from downstairs started to come up to see what it was all about. While happily denying them the classic ‘I’ve got an album out’ pose’, she did give them access to most of her songs, and by doing so received a big applause and many well-meant woo-hoo’s.
With Ieaun Cilgwri closing down the poets’ part of the evening, Jeff Jepson was chosen to close down the night. With long talks with members of the audience, witty remarks (‘This song is called Odette, it’s not about the credit crunch.’) and the Smiths, his stage act was quite similar to that of Vinnie T Spen. His music couldn’t have been more different though. Best described as blue eyed folk, Jepson’s high pitched voice is quite an unusual act in the world of acoustic music. And with his slow songs and loud voice, quite a fresh sound as well. Eagerly faking the ‘catalogue’ pose (as opposed to Rachael Dunn), Jepson made his show quite an entertaining one and even though part of the audience went downstairs to enjoy a certain band from Manchester, the hardcore fans were still there, enjoying him.
With his prophetic words ‘enjoy the Smiths’ the Folk Upstairs were ready for rock downstairs and the engineer set in ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’. Which was the best ending one could imagine. Just like the evening, it was entertaining, right on spot and even a bit ironic, as they already burned down the disco and hanged the blessed DJ by then.
For more information about the Folk Upstairs, please visit www.thefolkupstairs.co.uk
The next Folk Upstairs is on Friday 14th May and features Barry Briercliffe, Richard Batty, Dogstar, Alexis Blue and Stuart Todd. There will be open mic available and it’s all hosted by birthday girl Rachael Dunn! £4 entry. 7.30pm until late.
