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It's an odd thing, the gentrification of music that's gone on over the
last decade or so. It's not necessarily all bad; we all like a nice sit down
at the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall now and again.
But it does on
occasion throw up rather surreal evenings like this one, when acoustic
folksters with battered guitars and embroidered waistcoats, who shouldn't
really be seen outside of fields in Cherry Hinton or Somerset, are paraded
before the polite denizens of fashionable Islington in churches,
backed by stained glass windows and faced by audiences sitting neatly in
pews.
The darker, more Gothic, Smog end of alt.country usually rises to
this challenge admirably; Kid Harpoon on the other hand looks halfway
between bedazzled and bewildered by it, starting off with an air more akin
to a wired rabbit caught in the headlights than an indie kid ready to wow
the fashionistas. His traditional folksieness, complete with
astrological-themed lyrics and darker matters hidden behind the sunny tunes,
soon adapts however, and the perfect acoustics give his impressive vocal
range room to shine.
He's very throaty for such a delicate-looking young
chap and even he acknowledges that the evening is the musical equivalent of
a 4X4 shopping trip to Waitrose - thanking the audience for the quietness
that allows his more fragile songs to shine. Like the audience and the
venue, he looks a bit too clean to have ever slept barefoot in a teepee but
by the end of the set he's easily proved his worth.
Main act Fionn Regan is more Earthy, at least looking as if he might once
have seen the outdoors and a few fields, although personally, I'm still
feeling rather uncomfortable amid an audience who you can't help but feel
will go home tonight with tales of how they saw a real Irishman with a
guitar, as they laugh nervously to their equally polite neighbours. It's not
coincidence that Fionn himself seems incapable of keeping a straight face
throughout much of the performance; the ridiculousness of it is inescapable.
He starts off acoustic and unaccompanied - just him, his harmonica and
guitar, in front of the congregation. He seems shambolically homemade,
incongruous in this venue with his ill-fitting waistcoat and gaffer-taped
guitar but this is - as the audience well knows - all part of the charm.
He's bringing a little slice of outdoor summer hippy dreams to a cold corner
of December's inner London and they love him for it, particularly when he
gives his little anti-technology rant (so much so that most of them record
it, blackberries and mobiles aloft).
He's soon joined by an entourage including girl singers, a double bassist
and drummer. Between them they produce dreamy, laidback folk that could lull
us all to sleep and the only (small) complaint is that perhaps it's all a
bit samey - you almost start to wish for some insane Shamanic drumming to
remind you that you're awake. Not at the expense of the plinky little
handbells, though, which are completely lovely and a touch that would be
virtually impossible in any other venue. This naïf-like quality is what the
audience has come here for and he is doing it very well. Songs like Be Good
Or Be Gone and Snowy Atlas Mountains stand out from the crowd and you can
bet that the inevitable comparisons with Bob Dylan won't be long in
coming.
Sadly, the massed hordes do let their hero down when it comes to the
audience sing-along to the sublime The End of History, proving to be far too
quiet and polite to be able to get the hang of the campfire chorus. He
perseveres heroically, refusing to give in until he's got some kind of
harmony out of us, and does it all very good naturedly - though I'd like to
see him try it on the main stage at Reading. His efforts prevail and we do
succeed, just, leaving him promising to meet us all afterwards in the bar,
if he's allowed out.
Bless 'im. It's been a good show. So good, in fact, that I buy the album
on the way out. He's a rare gem, perhaps somewhat out of place in these
surroundings but rising to the challenge and promising great things for a
warm field somewhere on the festival circuit when summer begins again.
BUY Fionn Regan - The End Of History
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