Saturday, October 25, 2008

Bellowhead - part of the Derby Traditional Music and Arts Festival 24 October 2008

Bellowhead in Derby

The buzz on Bellowhead has reached us perhaps late compared to many, but my word what a band to see live!

We caught some last minute tickets for their performance as part of the Derby Traditional Music and Arts Festival (on this weekend and back next year at my birthday weekend). So in advance of them we caught the fun of formation folk dancing (believe me we watched from the sidelines rather than joining in as we know what our dancing skills are like!) but it was clear many had come to see them specifically.

The audience was broadranging - from 60s down to under 10s - and all were swept under the magic of this spell-binding 11 piece collective. You have to admire a band that can accommodate pop posturings (the image of the string section playing off each other in various poses will have me giggling for a long while), funk influences (really, funk played by strings and horns in a folk-stylee has to be seen/heard to be believed), and even reggae... total madness with kazoos and everything.

Here's some cracking pictures of Bellowhead from various gigs and I will aim to add a couple of my own over the weekend.

It's also worth checking out the individual band members - many very active in lots of other projects - and like many events it's irksome to be reminded of how much we have missed in recent weeks (with both Faustus and Spiers and Boden in Nottingham recently Grr).

PS Can I just add that Jon Boden is a very compelling frontman and had the audience eating out of his hand. He also reminded me of an American Studies Professor I know who has a similar degree of intensity in his glare. Very odd. It may also be to do with the dark suit thing.

6 comments:

Jane Henry said...

Oh yes, Oh yes, my sister introduced me to them a while back. They sound a lot of fun to see live!

mike said...

So jealous! I wanted to go and see them myself, but K has only just got back from Seattle and the jetlag was non-negotiable. Still holding out the faintest of hopes that I might coax him out for Julie Fowlis this evening...

Sarah said...

Also very jealous, Lisa. I have a ticket to see them in Shrewsbury tonight but am currently confined to the sofa with a nasty, gunky chest infection. Missing out on a nice weekend with friends *and* a rollicking gig, by your account... :-(

Anonymous said...

And we were at the same Bellowhead gig!

What strange magic is this...? I would blog-friend you, but alas I've come from the land of Livejournal...

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Hi circelily, good to hear from you! If you email me i will let you know my livejournal address (I don't update it but I do use the account to comment on lj sites!)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comment - friended you back and experimented with LJ-messaging. Dunno if it worked. Not *quite* sure how it works *g*