REVUE: CHELTENHAM FOLK FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT: CHELTENHAM TOWN HALL

What better way to get this 17th Cheltenham Folk

Festival underway than in the company of some of the most exceptionally

talented musicians currently working in traditional music. Yorkshireman Gavin Davenport

and his band kicked the evening off, his powerful voice and percussive guitar

immediately hushing the expectant near-capacity audience with a set of

narrative-rich songs, with possibly the Australian convict tale Jim Jones in Botany Bay being the

highlight of the set.

Long-time festival favourites Belshazzar's Feast then had

the crowd in stitches with their celebrated suite of quixotic and mischievous

musical games. Typically starting with a hypnotic and lively mazurka, the duo's

tunes would then suddenly veer off into music hall ditties, Christmas carols

and even strains of the Birdy Song. Interspersing this mirth with some serious

pieces, Paul Sartin's oboe brought an almost chamber music feel to the stage,

particularly when closing the set with the delicate Miss Love's Waltz. Even then, accordionist Paul Hutchinson, all

shaggy dog hair and beard, couldn't resist temptation and this stately tune

ended in discordant cacophony, all to the cheers and roars of a

well-entertained audience.

After a short break to allow for refuelling at the welcoming

real-ale bar, Fay Hield and the Hurricane Party hit the stage and stole the

show. Hield, tall, raven haired and very striking in a long orange frock had

the audience spellbound for an exceptional hour, her strong Yorkshire voice

bringing real vitality and drama to songs like The Weaver's Daughter, Pretty

Nancy and the sad Spanish civil war lament Little Yellow Roses. The band, a veritable super-group in their own

right comprising Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney, Andy Cutting and Roger Wilson, brought

real tub-thumping verve to the occasion, especially on swaggering versions of King Henry Was King James's Son and The Fox Jumps Over  the Parson's Gate. They were also

brilliant vocalists, as on Tom Waits' The

Briar and the Rose which was astounding in its tender sadness, with Hield

and Boden's vocals blending together perfectly. Hield and the band signed off with

a dark and sombre The Lover's Ghost,

bringing long and noisy applause from a very well pleased crowd.

Headliners KAN were a completely different commodity. Their

complex and groove-entwined melodies took in Scottish reels, Irish and Breton

dances, Spanish jigs and even some avant-garde Swiss jazz. Starting with the

very aptly titled Epic Set, they

immediately washed the auditorium in a Celtic symphony of rich flute, guitar, fiddle

and whistle, all carried along with the subtlest of rhythmic drumming from

James Goodwin. Their fluid and dense music invoked images of the forests,

mountain tops, waterfalls and rich verdant pastures of Hibernia and Caledonia.  At the centre of this Brian Finnegan's flute

and whistle playing was truly remarkable, notably on the Andean influenced

'Eva' written for his Mexican wife, while Aidan O'Rourke's soaring fiddle had

the younger sections of the audience up and dancing energetically. Perhaps it

was all too vigorous a Celtic feast for some of the more traditional English

folk fans in the audience, with nearly half the seats empty by the time the show

ended, though perhaps as it had gone midnight it was just well past too many

people's bedtimes!

Eric Worrall