Never has the phrase “the show must go on” seemed so entirely apt. The day after the atrocious terrorist massacres in Beirut and Paris – the latter including an indiscriminate attack on the Bataclan theatre during a show by the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal where more than 80 people were killed – the second edition of the High & Lonesome festival begins.
Nearly 11 hours later and in bringing the event to what is an undoubtedly relieved and ultimately triumphant close, joint headliner Julia Holter is greatly affected by the horrific events of the night before. “I am feeling weird tonight,” she says and in reflecting everyone in the room’s thoughts and feelings she wants to perform a song of love and humanity.
The Californian musician wrote a melody to the long lost lyrics of the Appalachian folk singer Karen Dalton’s ‘My Love My Love’. In a respectful, hushed silence Holter sings the words acapella – “…The strong shall never fade/We’ll build upon a foundation that our hearts and heads have made…” – before one-by-one her band joins in with the song. It is a deeply moving show of resilience and solidarity.
Accompanied by her stellar band of Devin Hoff on upright bass, drummer Corey Fogel and Deanna Maccabe on viola, Julia Holter proceeds to take us on a mesmeric journey across a landscape featuring the avant-garde, jazz, neo-classical, and pure unadorned pop. Our primary staging posts are those taken from what will surely be one of the albums of the year, Have You In My Wilderness though detours through older material – ‘This Is A True Heart’ and the ensuing ‘Horns Surrounding Me’, in particular – are just as beguiling.
Our journey ends at ‘Vasquez’, a song described rather prosaically by Holter as being about a bandit. A fantastic labyrinthine work of tremendous experimentation and improvisation it feels like a huge emotional victory.
Much earlier in the day, the teenage Scots’ siblings Jacob and Rory Green – appearing as JR Green – enchant us with their sparkling mix of accordion and acoustic guitar. Showcasing songs from their debut EP Bring The Witch Doctor the vibrancy and warmth of their performance is a lovely counterpoint to the harsh weather conditions outside.
In its inaugural year, High & Lonesome was located across a number of venues in Leeds city centre. This year it is concentrated on two. Left Bank, which come into its own during the evening, and the Brudenell Social Club. With its 100-year history and weathered charm, the Brudenell is the perfect setting in which to enjoy High & Lonesome’s trademark celebration of all things Americana, acoustic and beyond. The day’s acts are scheduled to appear alternately in each of the Brudenell’s main music rooms – the larger capacity main Concert Room and its smaller companion, the Games Room. Having more than doubled its ticket sales from last year, it is a programme of events that works perfectly for the increased numbers in attendance.
After JR Green comes local country/folk band Fitzwallace. Featuring songs from their brand new EP Sweetheart they capture the determined, positive mood of the day with a dynamic performance. The Melbourne-based contemporary folk outfit The Mae Trio are one of the day’s many highlights. Their set is full of heart, humour and humility and one in which their covers of first fellow Antipodean Lorde’s ‘Buzzcut Season’ and then Kate Rusby’s ‘Lately’ (performed here unaccompanied and with the most perfect of three-part harmonies) are outstanding.
Another Leeds-based band Cottonwoolf’s heart may lie in psychedelia but here they show great versatility by embracing strong elements of blues, rock and soul. Their last song ‘White As Bone’ takes them even further off-piste with its inherent shades of jazz and funk and in Grant Fennell they have a frontman not only equipped with a marvellous voice but also an ability to plough on through the debilitating effects of a hangover.
Lewis & Leigh straddle the distance between Wales and the Mississippi with their gentle blend of country and folk. Tom Williams follows them onto the main stage with his partner and musical collaborator Sarah and together they affirm all of the quality and personable charm they had shown when last seen back in June at Wakefield’s Long Division Festival. Having just released his latest album New House – born, you suspect, of the couple’s many recent house moves in Hastings – the record’s title track is a particular stand-out from a set that is evenly weighted with humour, lyrical perception and strong, melodic songs.
Lewis & Leigh and Tom Williams possess a certain lightness of touch, but the music of RM Hubbert is hewn from a much darker cloth altogether. The Glaswegian guitarist and occasional singer deals in the currencies of death, depression and heartbreak. Yet for all of the deep sadness that informs his music, such is the lyrical beauty of his intricate, flamenco-flavoured guitar playing and his sharp, expletive-strewn observational wit, he transcends such melancholy. ‘For Joe’ – a piece written for his late father-in-law – is beautiful and the concluding ‘Car Song’ – composed with fellow Scotsman Aidan Moffatt – is as shrewd as it is stunning.
The doors of Left Bank open mid-evening. A five-minute walk from the Brudenell, the building is the former St Margaret of Antioch’s Church and now a developing arts and events venue. Placed in the context of a wet, miserable November evening this Grade 2 listed building seems even more dramatic and its stark, sepulchral but ultimately uplifting setting brings out the very best in tonight’s performers.
Stepping aside from his Slowdive duties, Neil Halstead sits alone in the nave of the church with his acoustic guitar and enraptured audience for company. If in fact more atmosphere were needed, the breath from his voice can be seen in the cold as he sings his songs. He is a storyteller in the grandest tradition of Nick Drake and Bob Dylan before him and comparisons with those two illustrious singer-songwriters are undoubtedly well deserved. His set is one of strangely hypnotic intent as he weaves his wondrous spell around us.
But the performance of the whole day is reserved for Josh T. Pearson. With his closely cropped hair, manicured beard and wearing a white Stetson hat, perfectly-creased matching jeans and a pristine black motorcycle jacket, he bears no physical resemblance to the shambolic individual seen at ATP in Minehead some eight years ago. Since that time he has released the agonised classic album that is Last of the Country Gentlemen back in 2011 and, in his own words, then spent the last three years “doing fuck all ‘cept for catching up on Netflix.”
Pearson appears as a changed man. We are promised some new songs, some spiritual/gospel songs and some old songs. It is to the latter he goes first playing a peerless triumvirate of tracks from Last of the Country Gentlemen. ‘Thou Art Loosed’, ‘Sweetheart, I Ain’t Your Christ’ and ‘Sorry With a Song’ bleed into each other, their redemptive qualities magnified by the surroundings. Whilst the church has since been de-consecrated, its former life lends itself to the Texan singer-songwriter’s early Pentecostal upbringing. It induces a purity into his delivery, something that the natural acoustics of the Left Bank capture to perfection.
An unfortunate, though essential overlap with Julia Holter sadly curtails our Josh T. Pearson experience but those three songs generate a spirituality that belongs on some higher astral plane. They reinforce the capacity of music to heal and to unite; on a day on which the world had been plunged into deep mourning this surely must offer some hope for the future.
Photo credit: Simon Godley
More photos from High & Lonesome Festival 2015 can be found here
