Sharon Van Etten was playing 2 nights at the Brudenell and Lee & I originally had tickets for the Sunday night…….then I went and bought Kate Rusby tickets without realising they were on the same night……but thanks to a re-tweet by Nathan at the Brudenell, I managed to swap them for 2 Sat tickets with a lovely chap called Rob Warm, who it turns out, lives round the corner and used to go to school in Prestwich about the same time I did (and was on BBC 5live this morning talking about the housing crisis around affordable homes). I’m so grateful to him because I probably would have leaned towards Kate Rusby (as I’d not seen her before) and to think I could have missed out on this…….it doesn’t bear thinking about!
First up was Sam Amidon who did a great set with some lovely banter between songs. Particularly enjoyed the story about his mate Ezra who pretended to be a twin….. He did some awsome guitar and banjo picking and had us all singing ‘Sometimes’ with smiles on our faces. Turns out he’s married to Beth Orton which means he’s related to The Jim Jones Revue! The percussion for the evening was also noteworthy – sometime drums, sometimes bass and weird synth, sometimes shaker type things on his hands….Got his ‘Lily-O’ CD which is well worth a listen.
It’s only been a few months since we last saw the SVE gang and I’m guessing they’ve toured constantly in the meantime. Do they sound jaded? Hell no! They sound phenomenal and look like they’re still having a ball. The place was packed and we bumped into the Ilkley QUIMS contingent in there. We were treated to a wonderful set with Sharons voice filling up the place. There were the usual funny introductions and horseplay – When someone shouted “I fucking love you Sharon” she started thinking out loud “I’d love that as a ring tone”
The band are in great form and the stuff from the forthcoming ‘I don’t want to let you down’ EP sounded really strong – they’re on a roll for sure. It was the solo song she did however that stood out for me. “I moved to a new apartment in New York and because we’ve been on tour so much we’re still taking things out of boxes and I found a song my friend wrote who has now died. I’ve never played it before….I hope I get it right…still if I don’t, you won’t know”. One of the quims gang has had a very recent tragedy and when the song started with lyrics of tears being dried by the wind, it all got a bit much for Lee who let her tears flow.
Another wonderful night from team SVE – you really don’t want to miss this lot.
Bob the Chiropodist
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