A wonderful review from the Bellowhead gig; what a great night for one and all: "I suppose it is possible that some in the audience would be seeing the band for the first time, but even for the seasoned fan there were plenty of surprises to come. There were the usual ingredients of course: the swirling strings, a sonorous and swinging brass section (including wonderfully played bass parts on a helicon: ‘we don’t know what it is but it makes a lovely sound’), exuberant, bouncing choreography and increasingly powerful and confident vocals from Boden. Oh, and a whole range of other instrumentationincluding a Chinese gong, some beautiful oboe from Paul Sartin, Sam Sweeney’s bagpipes, virtuoso percussion from Pete Flood (but no sign of the frying pan) and praise the lord, a personal favourite, the bass clarinet. However, this was no ordinary Bellowhead show and even by their standards it was a bit special... The evening had begun with some al fresco performances on the terrace with some of Bellowhead playing with members of Aldeburgh Young Musicians, a group of fiendishly talented young people who were lucky enough to spend four days working with the band before this concert. Indeed, it was their contribution to the proceedings that lifted the show to an even higher level. The young people joined the band as they processed in at the beginning of the show singing a beautiful arrangement of ‘General Taylor’ and when Bellowhead broke into a spirited version of some Hampshire dance tunes at the end of the first set they were joined by I think at least 20 young fiddlers, mandolinists, percussionists, guitarists and wonderfully, a bassoonist. Needless to say large numbers of the audience were by now wildly dancing. Bellowhead are rightly famous for their breakneck dance tunes and with half an hour to go before the end of the show Boden announced to deafening applause that it would be dancing all the way from now on. By now the young people were back on stage and having the time of their lives. A blast." - Martin Burley
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 22:27:52 +0000
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