Live Review

Bellowhead – Pacific Road Arts Centre, Birkenhead

• 17th Nov 2010

The crowd were of a mature eccentric kind, and the atmosphere was more civil than your average gig, but once the band started the venue felt like a different place altogether. First the drums and tuba played and continued as the rest of the band joined them and joined in one-by-one, it seemed, when they felt like it. They brought on their trumpets, squeeze box, bagpipes, fiddles (it’s actually easier to name the instruments they don’t play) and played them jovially. They could have easily been at home in a huge jam session in a folk club or similar in early 1920’s America, ensuring everyone in the room is joining in.

The songs were written and performed completely differently to each other, such was their diversity. All 11 members must have played 25 instruments during the course of the gig, each track obviously being well rehearsed but with the band giving the feeling they were playing them for the first time, such was their own enjoyment. Some tunes were simply but effectively written, while others consisted of unpredictable complexity, changing dynamic during the course of the actual song at times. More importantly each one was well written and memorable, partially thanks to their continuous original full sound inclusive of an underlying array of various bells, xylophones, plucking violins, etc. You could hear each and every single instrument so clearly. How they pulled this off with no amplifiers is beyond me, but they did it, all fronted by a charming and entertaining eccentric folk singer.

Their songs varied from long folk tales being sang to an accompanying, always apt, soundtrack, like a TV theme tune to a costume drama, to punchier Pogues-esque Irish jigs. The singer Jon Boden sang every lyric tongue-in-cheek but still meaningfully, and the crowd were mesmerised by him. In return he responded to us all, ensuring our hand clapping and dancing to the music not just along to them but participating WITH them. There was a definitely a two-way communication between the punters and band, making us feel included and part of this great experience. It’s not just Boden who ensured this, all band members did. Even if some members weren’t playing on certain numbers, they danced along and entertained the crowd as much as they did when actually playing. One track I felt I was in church, the next on a Jamaican beach, then in a carnival, then at an Irish wedding, such was the atmosphere and feel they presented in each number. They enjoyed the experience as much as the crowd, shown in their ‘comedic’ feel through the gig. They still take their music seriously, but still played with smiles on their faces, injecting humour between songs, which was infectious to the crowd all night.

I didn’t know they had already released their album ‘Hedonism’, let alone know any tracks, but I bought it the next morning, such was their impact on me. This was genuinely the best gig I had been to in months. I have never been so entertained. I can only summarise them as a traditional old-fashioned style English folk band that can write and play songs of so many genres far beyond initial assumptions. World music, folk music, jazz music, classical music, church music; you name it. Bellowhead are going to be massive as they appeal to people of all ages and of all musical taste.