Wilton’s Music Hall
Details
- Date
- April 02, 2013
- Venue
- Wilton’s Music Hall London, England (Shadwell)
- Billed As
- Joe Boyd - Nick Drake & "Way To Blue"
- Gig Type
- Concert
- Guests
- Neil CacColl, Kate St. John, Robyn Hitchcock, Green Gartside, Paul Smith & others
Reviews
Online review by The Up Coming
In 2009, influential American record producer Joe Boyd amassed artists and friends to help celebrate the works of English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, creating an all-star team of performers to record cover versions of songs on Drake’s remarkable compilation album Way to Blue. The album that was originally produced by Boyd and released in 1994 includes songs taken from Drake’s original three albums and one from Time of No Reply.
The tribute cover album involving live performances from various artists to recreate the LP was brought to life on stage at Wilton’s Music Hall in what felt like an incredibly intimate occasion inside a grand arena. Boyd spoke openly and fondly between songs about first coming across Drake and his working relationship with him. These introductions and after thoughts allowed the audience to grasp the significance of Drake to those who met him and those touched by his music.
Guitarist Neil MacColl was drafted into the band to play Drake’s parts and was hysterically honest about the difficulty he experienced when trying to adapt to the virtuoso’s complex tuning and technique. Joined by musical director Kate St. John on the cor anglais, MacColl’s rendition of Time of No Reply was as captivating as it was impressive. Other stand-out moments included Green Gartside and Robyn Hitchcock’s take on Free Ride. Hitchcock’s showmanship and prowess were later reprised in Parasite, while Paul Smith (Maximo Park) aptly sang a piercing version of Northern Sky.
Boyd also revealed audio clips of the now deceased Robert Kirby recounting arranging music with Drake for the albums on which they worked together. Perhaps, the most special piece came from the screen behind the stage, as Boyd projected footage of Krystle Warren’s soulful and tear-jerking interpretation of Time Has Told Me. In all, what could have been a melancholy affair was actually a heart-warming and humbling experience. This posthumous festival of music was a wonder to behold and a joy to witness.
Online review by The Independent
Nick Drake died aged 26 from an overdose of antidepressants, having retreated to his parents’ home in the idyllic-sounding, Albion-evoking village of Tamworth-in-Arden. His music was barely listened to in his short lifetime, and the customary cult around a dead rock star took unusually long to build, stardom being something Drake wasn’t built for, and never achieved.
Joe Boyd, 1960s London’s great folk-rock and underground scene fixer, talent scout, producer and entrepreneur, believed from the start. He discovered and produced Drake, and has put together occasional tribute nights to him, leading to the Way to Blue: A Tribute to Nick Drake live album being launched tonight.
We’re in London’s oldest surviving music hall, a beautiful, dilapidated building which looks dredged up from a Victorian nether-world. Urbane MC Boyd mixes reminiscence, guest performers and laptop excerpts from previous shows. This footage of other, fuller concerts, during a gig already about a man who isn’t here, suggests we’ve come on the wrong night.
Olivia Chaney, a dungaree-wearing young Englishwoman with a bit of Drake’s posh bashfulness, is better. Singing “River Man”, she brings out its writer’s dreamy stasis, the sense of a river flowing on without him. Better still is Nick’s late mother Molly Drake’s “Dream Your Dreams”, sung by Chaney unamplified with cockney music hall inflection. The cult of Molly Drake is just beginning. Watching her hands harmonise on the piano inspired her son’s strange guitar tunings, Boyd observes to folk guitarist Neil MacColl. Such fascinating insights pepper an evening which is more educational than emotional. MacColl’s version of “Time Of No Reply” offers more softly implacable rustic stasis, dipped in autumnal shades.
Robyn Hitchcock duets with Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside on “Free Ride”, blending beautifully. Boyd’s evocative memory of John Cale taking a fast cab to Drake’s Hampstead pad the second he heard his music, and recording “Northern Sky” with him the next day, prefaces Maximo Park singer Paul Smith’s expansive 1980s Northern pop version of the song. Then Green sings Drake’s lyric about posthumous popular acceptance, “Fruit Tree”, in the almost sickly-sweet, creamy voice it takes banks of studio effects for others to match. Boyd finishes by honouring two more dead men who were crucially empathetic to Drake, his string arranger Robert Kirby and photographer Keith Morris. Boyd carries these shades with him, ensuring they’re remembered.
In 2009, influential American record producer Joe Boyd amassed artists and friends to help celebrate the works of English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, creating an all-star team of performers to record cover versions of songs on Drake’s remarkable compilation album Way to Blue. The album that was originally produced by Boyd and released in 1994 includes songs taken from Drake’s original three albums and one from Time of No Reply.
The tribute cover album involving live performances from various artists to recreate the LP was brought to life on stage at Wilton’s Music Hall in what felt like an incredibly intimate occasion inside a grand arena. Boyd spoke openly and fondly between songs about first coming across Drake and his working relationship with him. These introductions and after thoughts allowed the audience to grasp the significance of Drake to those who met him and those touched by his music.
Guitarist Neil MacColl was drafted into the band to play Drake’s parts and was hysterically honest about the difficulty he experienced when trying to adapt to the virtuoso’s complex tuning and technique. Joined by musical director Kate St. John on the cor anglais, MacColl’s rendition of Time of No Reply was as captivating as it was impressive. Other stand-out moments included Green Gartside and Robyn Hitchcock’s take on Free Ride. Hitchcock’s showmanship and prowess were later reprised in Parasite, while Paul Smith (Maximo Park) aptly sang a piercing version of Northern Sky.
Boyd also revealed audio clips of the now deceased Robert Kirby recounting arranging music with Drake for the albums on which they worked together. Perhaps, the most special piece came from the screen behind the stage, as Boyd projected footage of Krystle Warren’s soulful and tear-jerking interpretation of Time Has Told Me. In all, what could have been a melancholy affair was actually a heart-warming and humbling experience. This posthumous festival of music was a wonder to behold and a joy to witness.
Online review by The Independent
Nick Drake died aged 26 from an overdose of antidepressants, having retreated to his parents’ home in the idyllic-sounding, Albion-evoking village of Tamworth-in-Arden. His music was barely listened to in his short lifetime, and the customary cult around a dead rock star took unusually long to build, stardom being something Drake wasn’t built for, and never achieved.
Joe Boyd, 1960s London’s great folk-rock and underground scene fixer, talent scout, producer and entrepreneur, believed from the start. He discovered and produced Drake, and has put together occasional tribute nights to him, leading to the Way to Blue: A Tribute to Nick Drake live album being launched tonight.
We’re in London’s oldest surviving music hall, a beautiful, dilapidated building which looks dredged up from a Victorian nether-world. Urbane MC Boyd mixes reminiscence, guest performers and laptop excerpts from previous shows. This footage of other, fuller concerts, during a gig already about a man who isn’t here, suggests we’ve come on the wrong night.
Olivia Chaney, a dungaree-wearing young Englishwoman with a bit of Drake’s posh bashfulness, is better. Singing “River Man”, she brings out its writer’s dreamy stasis, the sense of a river flowing on without him. Better still is Nick’s late mother Molly Drake’s “Dream Your Dreams”, sung by Chaney unamplified with cockney music hall inflection. The cult of Molly Drake is just beginning. Watching her hands harmonise on the piano inspired her son’s strange guitar tunings, Boyd observes to folk guitarist Neil MacColl. Such fascinating insights pepper an evening which is more educational than emotional. MacColl’s version of “Time Of No Reply” offers more softly implacable rustic stasis, dipped in autumnal shades.
Robyn Hitchcock duets with Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside on “Free Ride”, blending beautifully. Boyd’s evocative memory of John Cale taking a fast cab to Drake’s Hampstead pad the second he heard his music, and recording “Northern Sky” with him the next day, prefaces Maximo Park singer Paul Smith’s expansive 1980s Northern pop version of the song. Then Green sings Drake’s lyric about posthumous popular acceptance, “Fruit Tree”, in the almost sickly-sweet, creamy voice it takes banks of studio effects for others to match. Boyd finishes by honouring two more dead men who were crucially empathetic to Drake, his string arranger Robert Kirby and photographer Keith Morris. Boyd carries these shades with him, ensuring they’re remembered.