Last updated at 11:28, Monday, 28 July 2008

Review: Boo Hewerdine house concert, Monkey Tree, Wigton

Once again another successful musical evening at the Monkey Tree, in Wigton. How do these two ladies get such fine exceptional artists? Boo Hewerdine, winner of an Ivor Novello award and collaborator with Eddi Reader on Patience of Angels, seems equally at home in the confines of an elegant town house as well as the festival stage with his great folk/rock sound.

Dandelions is an evocative song with touching lyrics complemented by an exquisite tune about the Koh-i-Nor diamond, also with intriguing lyrics. The audience were given a chance to shine singing choruses and joining in with percussion.

Some great banter between singer and listeners added to the wonderful atmosphere.

After hostesses Ishka and Jill’s home-made food the audience returned to the singing.

An intriguing composition Bell, Book and Candle, was used for a climatic award-winning death scene in the TV soap Emmerdale – Boo explained that it had also been used in three other TV deaths scenes.

“At my gigs people cry a lot, maybe it touches them,” he said with tongue firmly in cheek. An audience request for Ontario, about moving away from home and the charming Slow Learner had the listeners gradually joining in, followed by Bible Pages “and we would roll our cigarettes with Bible pages” (a song of soldier’s lives and death), Taxi Dancer, another song with a strange heart-break tale to tell.

The evening finished all too soon with Dragonflies a delicate, dancing melody with deep, disturbing words - “a lost summers day is all of life for us and the dragonfly”.

MARY HESLAM

• Blue grass, folk and country musicians Rachel Harrington and Zac Borden play the next Monkey House concert on Saturday, July 5, at 8pm.

First published at 05:33, Friday, 27 June 2008
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk