Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 December 2005 08:52:47
Went to see Martyn Joseph last night on his Deep Blue tour, at the Cathedral Centre (wierd yet beautiful venue inside the Cathedral precincts).
Martyn Joseph is like a fine wine, his music maturing and improving with age. Last night was primarily material from the new album, with some of his older material added in, together with the odd cover version. It was a true folk gig, with the humour, politics, social history and love in a performance which was charged with, what appeared to be, true emotion.
The material off the new album is a mixture, which has something to appeal to all, but the highlights for me were Six Sixty Six, How Did We End Up Here, (both strong, angry songs), Proud Valley Boy (a true folk song which relates to Paul Robesons visits to South Wales, showing solidarity with the mining communities there in the 50's) and Turn Me Tender (which is I believe a modern Psalm).
The covers included a version of "Stuck In A Moment" which became a sing-a-long in the chorus, which remained faithful to the original, but in true folk style, involved some improvisation in the verses (according to Third Party) and a really powerful version of "If God Was One of Us" which was performed with such strength I thought the guitar strings were going to break.
As for the old stuff, there was "Working Mother", "Thunder and Rainbows", "Please Sir" and "I am Woman"( or what ever the correct title is), but significantly no Dolphins Make Me Cry. Whilst I love the song, I felt its ommission was a positive thing because it shows that Martyn has really moved on and now has a mature confidence which does not need to rely on the past. A good night? Nah, a wonderful night.