An Autumnal return to EartH (Experimental Arts Hackney) for a remarkable line-up in the converted cinema main hall. Pentangle were one of the big four of British folk-rock bands alongside Fairport, Steeleye Span and the Incredible String Band – each bringing their own particular brand of music to that umbrella term. Pentangle were the jazzier end of folk, and were also blessed with two of the finest guitar players of their generation – John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Sixty years on, as sole founding member Jacqui McShee reminded us a couple of times, the band are somewhat different. McShee still fronts and provides the main vocals, and is backed by a band devoid of guitars – upright bass, drums, synthezisers/keyboards and saxophones are the new sound. With that much music to come, it was an early start, with doors at 6 pm and Sam Grassie on at 6:45 pm for his 45-minute set – with Junior Brother getting a similarly substantial set. We’ll come back to them.
It is somewhat remarkable that Jacqui McShee is still touring whilst many of her remaining contemporaries have retired. Her voice is still remarkably clear in tone, although somewhat lower in timbre than when she started out on the Pentangle path, and she shares the frontline of the band with Martin Winnings, who plays saxophones and clarinet throughout. The band is filled out by keyboard player Spencer Cozens, Alan Thomson on upright bass and masterful jazz drummer Pascal Consoli. As we’d be reminded in the encore, Pentangle were always a jazzy band – Light Flight is and remains the jazziest folk imaginable; it’s also still a very listenable pop song. Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle do lean into that feel from the start, so that even the very traditional material such as Once I Had A Sweetheart have their own saxophone lines.
Of course this version of the band doesn’t rely solely on the original band’s material – they have a number of albums of their own to pick from – and this includes a couple of songs that McShee describes as leaning into political commentary, whether it be the slightly despairing Nothing Really Changes which criticises big business and the uncaring way it approaches the world or the mocking The Acrobat which was written with a previous American president in mind, and as McShee noted is rather relevant again.
However, it would be ridiculous to deny that when tunes from the old band arise – even in rearranged form – there’s a certain frisson of emotion, as with the back-to-back nods to Bert Jansch with his I Got A Feeling (which borrowed liberally from Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue) and Lord Franklin, which was usually sung by John Renbourn. The biggest thrill came late in the set with a wonderful Cruel Sister, which pared back the band accompaniment to make the most of one of the darkest and most fantastical folk songs. By contrast, Wife Of Usher’s Well was beautifully sung and incorporated a little scat singing. Wedding Dress managed to retain its Appalachian feel despite the lack of banjo and an accompaniment which veered towards jazz-funk; if that sounds like it shouldn’t work, well, it did.
The second of two support bands was Junior Brother, who are unafraid of dipping their toes several feet deep into the weirder end of psych-folk; it’s a sound which embraces the atonal and finds the strange or disturbing in the commonplace – as on The Weekend, where the unsettling solitude of an empty house produces the wailing observation that “there is no weekend.” The band rapidly took us deep into Incredible String Band territory, a journey that can feel like a challenge at first – but life’s about embracing challenges, is it not? Letting oneself go with the band’s approach, and there’s a lot to, well, not just enjoy – to connect with on a more instinctual level. And in case that should all get too serious, Ronan Kealy (who is Junior Brother) is happy to share self-deprecating observations such as “I don’t think I’ve ever been so sweaty on stage”, or give deadpan introductions to songs – “this song is about being lost in a faerie fort – not great” he says of one whilst another, about being drunk at mass, prompts the question “who here is afraid of God? Only three people?” Junior Brother is the kind of musician that once you’ve clicked with you can only want to hear more from.
This might now feel like the saving of the best for last, and it’s true that having heard the album, Two Hawks Sam Grassie had taken a very high position on the “must see live” list. A talented guitar player, with a Glaswegian growl in his voice that brings to mind Bert Jansch or Dick Gaughan. Having taken the stage, he gruffly stated that he wouldn’t be talking too much in order to get as much music into his allotted forty-five minutes – which he certainly went on to do.
With an intense seriousness that at times finds him leaning head down over his guitar, Sam Grassie led his band through a set of songs that leant into the macabre or the uncanny, such as Put The Blood and Polly Vaun, mixing this up with sets of tunes that showed off the ensemble playing.
A shiver of a thought struck as the band was expanded with a female vocalist; now we had five musicians on stage – a veritable Pentangle. And this was perhaps no coincidence, as Grassie shared that he was a big admirer of Jansch, and had previously had a band called Avocet. This full band launched into the dramatic Burning of Auchindoun, a traditional song about events that occurred in Scotland in 1592 that led to both castle burning and hangings – it’s a fantastic song, and this performance of it brought out all the hard edges. If there’s going to be a folk revival – and why not? – then it’s going to be because of musicians like Sam Grassie.
And so we can conclude and finish this piece by stating with confidence that folk is alive and well in the 21st century, with plenty of bands taking inspiration from older bands – whilst forging their own distinctive path – and with the miraculous continuation of older bands also forging their own new and distinctive path. Which is as it should be – if the music stands still, then it really is dead. This masterful combination of old and new bands was put together by Broadside Hacks, who are making real waves on the folk scene and have given the Capital’s scene in particular an enlivening kick which will only be for the future good.
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