Talented folk duo Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts returned for another visit to the Centenary Centre in Peel as part of the anniversary celebration tour of their album 'The Innocent Left', which sees its tenth birthday come later this month.
After first catching them in the role of support act to the legendary Fairport Convention when they performed on the island back in 2011, I was eager to see them again (having missed their last visit in 2014).
Armed with just fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar and a beautiful, assured display of vocal harmonies, the first set featured the majority of 'The Innocent Left' album, including the dramatic opener 'Scarecrow', and the twist-in-the-tale of 'Doctor James' (written about the 1800s surgeon James Barry, who was found to be a woman upon their death in 1865).
Gilmore and Roberts, in true folk tradition, have a great eye for a story that makes for fascinating subject matter. Another example was an as-yet unreleased track about an Aboriginal man (with the wonderful name Burnum Burnum) who planted the Aboriginal flag on the white cliffs of Dover on the Australian Bicentenary Day in 1988 as a satirical way of claiming England as Aboriginal land, just as the first fleet had done to his homeland back in 1788. It was the first of a few new songs that show their next album will certainly be one to savour.
But they also have a treasure trove of more personal stories too - including the poignant 'Louis Was a Boxer', written about a drunk who would frequent Roberts' branch of Subway back in his university days. It would be easy to dismiss such persons as weirdos or oddballs, but the song presents Louis' past in a plaintive and respectful manner, giving a wider audience to a life-story that could've so easily have been passed off as the mutterings of someone going through hard times. Likewise 'Your Home' (Katriona Gilmore's gorgeous ode to parent-hood) which, for all its tender prose on offering children a safe place via a parent's love, was performed for the first time in front of a workshop of 0-5 year olds armed with percussion instruments, which probably took away from its emotional appeal!
With between-song banter and stories that breathe life into the compositions, Gilmore & Roberts are just as adept at keeping the audience entertained when the music stops. When Jamie Roberts was afflicted with a broken string mid-song, we were assured that he was "the fastest string-changer in the Peel area" and wouldn't be kept waiting. In the time it took the offending string to be changed and tuned, Katriona's mandolin had gone out of tune - causing her to eat her words most humorously!
Explaining their wish to write and record a bluegrass-inspired song, we were treated to the end result of this, the song 'Over Snake Pass', an instrumental about the hill pass in Derbyshire, that truly evokes the feeling of traversing a winding country road...complete with unexpected slowing-down periods behind tractors going about their business.
There's room for humour in the songs the pair write, as well. 'Silver Screen', Katriona tells us, "is both a love song and an apology to sat-nav", after both relying on, and switching off in exasperation, the technological device during their long driving tours of the UK. 'Ghost of a Ring' meanwhile, is both a heart-wrenching ballad of pining for a past love that didn't work out, and the realisation that the ring said lover bought for you was a shoddy fake - discolouration of the finger and all.
After an interval, where the gleeful duo announced all the CDs on their merchandise stall had been sold, the second half opened with 'Bone Cupboard', a stomping, percussive track with a sinister feel, based on the skeletons to be found in many people's closets. A song with connections to the Isle of Man - 'Selfish Man' - was given some background as being written about a chap who took part in the T.T. motorcycle races on the island, with little regard to how his family perceive his partaking in this dangerous activity.
Ending the set with another tale of a fascinating individual, 'Change Your Tune' (featuring a lovely singalong from the audience) focused on Daryl Davis, a blues musician who has dedicated his life to befriending and persuading members of the Ku Klux Klan to abandon their misguided beliefs, taking their ceremonial robes as souvenirs of the good he's done. You can't make it up - and it's a great tune to boot.
An encore followed, delivered entirely 'acappella' - a cover version of the Dawes' song 'A Little Bit of Everything', a song the pair say is really about life in general, delivering many varied vignettes and observations on life and the connections humans can have with each other. A fitting way to end a performance by a pair with bucketfuls of talent, a lovely way with their audience (whether new or loyal follower) and who constantly deliver thought-provoking, interesting material with a real ear for a killer melody. We hope their return to the island isn't too far away.
Review by P T Muscutt
