I was delighted
to find that Steeleye Span, with only two members left from their classic
Seventies line-up, are very much of the third kind.
I loved
Steeleye back in the Seventies, and I've continued to enjoy their classic
albums; but, unlike fellow folk-rockers Fairport Convention, I'd somehow lost
track of what they've been doing since, until I chanced on and fell in love with
their most recent album, Wintersmith
(reviewed here last year).
So, when I
found they were playing on the 11th March at the Playhouse in Harlow, only a
few miles away, I went to see them for the first time in many years.
They played a
mixture of classics from the Seventies — some heavily reinvented — and a
substantial number of tracks from Wintersmith.
The latter makes the evening bitter-sweet in retrospect. Wintersmith was a collaboration with lifelong fan Sir Terry
Pratchett, and it was just the next day that he died.
Nevertheless,
on the night the performance was electrifying and uplifting. The two remaining
members from the Seventies are singer Maddy Prior and bassist Rick Kemp, and
neither have lost any of their power. Maddy's singing is, if anything, stronger
than it used to be, even if she no longer hits those notes only your dog can
hear. She still dances to the instrumentals, too — rather more stately dancing
than she used to do, but impressive for someone in her late 60s.
Rick is as steady
and inventive as ever on the bass, and he's become an effective lead singer,
taking nearly a third of the songs. The other half of the rhythm section,
drummer Liam Genockey, while relatively a "new boy", has actually
spent longer behind the kit for Steeleye than the classic drummer Nigel Pegrum,
and he plays a big part in keeping the band rocking.
Pete Zorn is
newish to Steeleye Span but not to the British folk-rock scene (in spite of
being American). His role is perhaps the least defined of the current line-up,
but it reminds me a little of Tim Hart's multi-instrumental role in the
Seventies, although he plays a different set of instruments — guitar, dulcimer,
saxes and flute — and sings no leads. The saxes, in particular, give the band's
sound a new dimension.
The two newest
members both have extremely hard acts to follow, but succeed triumphantly.
Julian Littman makes light work of being the successor, both as guitarist and
vocalist, to Martin Carthy, Bob Johnson and Ken Nicol, while fiddler Jessie May
Smart fills Peter Knight's seven-league boots as if they were made for her.
Both clearly understand and respect Steeleye's history but are going to do
things their own way. On the evidence of the Harlow gig, they've found the
perfect balance I referred to at the beginning of this review.
The band played
the whole evening, with no support act, and rattled through their two sets with
a mix of polish and relaxed banter. They included around half of Wintersmith, which sounded as good as
(or better than) on the album, and a mixture of light-hearted songs, such as One Misty Moisty Morning and Saucy Sailor, with the dark,
bloodthirsty ballads Bob Johnson used to initiate, such as Long Lankin, King Henry and
Edward. And they finished the first
set with what Maddy called "that song" — their 1975 #5 hit All Around My Hat, with the audience
yelling back the chorus.
It wasn't just
crowd-pleasing, though. Steeleye have always had a habit of reinventing their
songs — like the reggae reinterpretation of Spotted
Cow in the Seventies — and some of the classics had a different sound. Most
of all, Boys of Bedlam from their
second album — the dark, eerie track Terry Pratchett cited as first hooking him
on Steeleye Span — appeared in an excellently rocked-up version with a rapped
interlude about being insane.
Steeleye Span
have been around for forty-five years now, and don't show signs of running out
of steam any time soon. They have energy that would do credit to a band half
their age, and musicianship that would do credit to any band.
I'll be excited
to see where the new members take them. Julian already contributes to the
creation as well as the performance, with several songs on Wintersmith — one of which, The
Summer Lady, has shades of Fairport Convention's Chris Leslie (in general
sound, not in a derivative sense) — and he seems to handle a wide range of
material with ease.
Jessie only had
one fiddle instrumental this time, though her playing is a significant part of
the overall sound, and I'm looking forward to hearing her come more to the
fore, as Peter Knight did.
I'll certainly
be watching out both for their next album and their next tour.
