Roy Harper

St George’s is mainly used for classic recitals – a big and plain rectangular hall (with gallery) with seats, leading to a rather strange hushed theatre-type atmosphere. And with Roy being a somewhat older musical hero and most of the audience being of that age, it wasn’t so much ‘Hats off to Roy Harper’ (a Led Zeppelin song) but mainly polite applause.

Tonight started with a short set of around half a dozen instrumental acoustic songs from Matt Churchill – who would later accompany Roy on several songs – and much like Roy he knew how to get the most out of his guitar, re-tuning the strings to increase the versatility of sounds. This was interesting enough for me to find out more about him (see www.mattchurchill.com).

After a short interval, Roy walked on to the stage, and immediately left again. Back a minute later with a cushion, he explained that he spotted the wooden chair. After a somewhat rambling chat (a feature between each song), he eventually started with ‘Commune’, and followed that with ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’.

Being John Peel Day, Roy gave us a story of how they once fell out. As John was introducing him, Roy was ‘doodling’ on his guitar leading to John throwing the microphone down and storming off, right out of the hall. But they made up afterwards.

The set included ‘The Green Man’, ‘Hallucinating Light’ & ‘When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease’, but not ‘I Hate The White Man’ – I was left wondering if he felt the words now too strong for audiences in the more mellow years of their life.

Did he insult any Christians? – if he did, he didn’t much care. With the between-song chats, he kept dipping back onto the theme of belief with comments such as 80% of the bible being urban myth, and was scathing of George Bush’s phonecall from god. As well, he showed his disgust at the Iraq War – pointing out how it’s accepted to kill tens of thousands of children on a whim with no consequences, while someone stealing a milk bottle is sent to jail. While only touching on Blair momentarily, he urged people to vote tactically next time.

I’d previously seen Roy only once, way back in 1984 at a small free festival – Torpedo Town in Waterlooville (a protest against a planned missile factory). Like on his recordings, he delivered his songs then with full passion behind every line. But tonight – although his passionate nature came across in the words between songs – there wasn’t the force to his singing that I was hoping for and wanting. Roy told how he’s played at St George’s before and has tried to dominate the acoustics of the hall, but eventually learnt that subtlety works better – so perhaps that was why.

Despite what I felt was a held-back vocal performance, it was still very enjoyable and I won’t be waiting another 20 years for more. But I’ll perhaps chose the venue with more care, as without that full-on passionate voice, Roy isn’t what he can be.

FUTURE GIGS

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