Blog
Joe Brown, Harlow
5th March 2005
Back home from Harlow and the kitties are fed. So, that was a long way to go on a whim (well, not as far as Harrogate but a long way none the less) and boy, was it worth it. To be fair it was probably quicker to drive home from Harlow than it would have been to get a train back from London at this time on a weekend -- and the drive was a hell of a lot more pleasant than a train journey would have been -- apart from the slow middle-lane drivers pissing me off on the motorway.
I phoned the box office at about 10.30 this morning to see if there were any tickets left and was lucky enough to get a return/cancellation with "limited leg room" right on the front row. The theatre was easy enough to find (thanks to AA route finder) and while I felt like the youngest person there, the people in the bar were some of the friendliest and easiest to chat with that I've ever encountered at a gig. It was a cozy little theatre and there can't have been a bad seat in the house. The "limited leg room" wasn't as bad as it sounded; my feet were touching the stage but not cramped. I was looking fairly steeply upward to the stage but that wasn't a problem as it was a great view.
Joe and his band, The Bruvvers, were amazing from the word go. They started with an a capella number and then launched into the set with Phil Capaldi on snare, Dave Nilo on double bass and Neil Gauntlett on guitar, with all three sharing one mic and backing vocals. Joe swapped between semi-acoustic guitar and mandolin. He had a particularly cool electro-acoustic Go traveler a bit like my acoustic Martin backpacker and used slide a fair bit which is something I haven't seen 'up close' and never out of a more serious blues context since I've been playing myself and it was fascinating. For the second half, a mid-stage curtain was removed and Dave switched to bass guitar for some numbers, Phil got a full kit and Joe got an electric guitar for a couple of numbers -- oh, and played fiddle for one song too. The music ranged through folk, blues, skiffle, bluegrass, rock'n'roll -- Lonnie Donegan and the Everly Brothers and so much else I can't begin to remember. The musicianship was amazing -- very inspiring to me as a muso.
A very short encore finished with I'll See You In My Dreams with Joe on his uke -- which brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat, because of course since I first heard Joe playing it on Concert for George, in my mind it will always be "the George song".
Top stuff. Large number out of ten. I never rated Joe before but now I see how misguided I was. The only problem now is that as well as wanting a bass, I now want a mandolin and a ukelele too. Bah.