Peggy Seeger and Calum MacColl
6th October 2021 - Abbeydale Picture House
Photos by Laura Page
Scroll down for the full review of this gig printed originally in Now Then magazine
Scroll down for the full review of this gig printed originally in Now Then magazine
Peggy Seeger, at once both very old and aggressively full of life, took the stage at the Abbeydale Picture House, both gingerly and by storm. Helped up the stage steps and to her seat by her son, Calum MacColl, she launched straight into her opener with no hesitation at all.
She started with songs both traditional and her own, about womanhood and about oppression, leaving no room for doubt as to whether her flame has dimmed.
Seeing one of the greats perform live is a grand occasion and a picture house is a place for grand happenings. Under bare stage lighting, in a majestic and shadowy old building complete with balcony, ornamental moulding, and cobwebbed proscenium arch, the stage was set for something grand. And it was.
But the evening with Peggy still felt like an intimate one. It was like being in her living room at cosy a family gathering - telling stories and remembering the old days. Nothing scripted or polished. Just a mother and son having a nice time, doing a little show and tell. Pete Seeger was just “my brother”, Ewan McCall just “my dad”, Alan Lomax just a family friend.
Every song came with its own origin story - either who collected it, who wrote it (or who claimed to have wrote it), or how Peggy came to write it. One that she wrote, ‘Woman On Wheels’, was about a friend at the Greenham Common peace camp and her two physical aides: a wheelchair and a pair of bolt cutters.
Another was a traditional song decrying marriage and the oppression of women, while ‘The Invisible Woman’ depicted the seeming invisibility of a woman grown old. Other songs covered tectonic plates, while ‘How I Long for Peace’ illustrated the world peace she says would come should women have all the power.
She called this tour her ‘first farewell’, and it felt like a goodbye but not a final one, nor a sad one.
Her voice, still powerful, conversational, could only just carry her through a full set. But her lively, fiery, matter-of-fact spirit and sharp tongue did the rest. She might not be able to keep touring forever but she won’t be gone anytime soon.
She started with songs both traditional and her own, about womanhood and about oppression, leaving no room for doubt as to whether her flame has dimmed.
Seeing one of the greats perform live is a grand occasion and a picture house is a place for grand happenings. Under bare stage lighting, in a majestic and shadowy old building complete with balcony, ornamental moulding, and cobwebbed proscenium arch, the stage was set for something grand. And it was.
But the evening with Peggy still felt like an intimate one. It was like being in her living room at cosy a family gathering - telling stories and remembering the old days. Nothing scripted or polished. Just a mother and son having a nice time, doing a little show and tell. Pete Seeger was just “my brother”, Ewan McCall just “my dad”, Alan Lomax just a family friend.
Every song came with its own origin story - either who collected it, who wrote it (or who claimed to have wrote it), or how Peggy came to write it. One that she wrote, ‘Woman On Wheels’, was about a friend at the Greenham Common peace camp and her two physical aides: a wheelchair and a pair of bolt cutters.
Another was a traditional song decrying marriage and the oppression of women, while ‘The Invisible Woman’ depicted the seeming invisibility of a woman grown old. Other songs covered tectonic plates, while ‘How I Long for Peace’ illustrated the world peace she says would come should women have all the power.
She called this tour her ‘first farewell’, and it felt like a goodbye but not a final one, nor a sad one.
Her voice, still powerful, conversational, could only just carry her through a full set. But her lively, fiery, matter-of-fact spirit and sharp tongue did the rest. She might not be able to keep touring forever but she won’t be gone anytime soon.
Richard Dawson and Tsarzi
24th Sept 2021 - Crookes Social Club
Read the review in Now Then Magazine HERE
Manu Delago Ensemble
26th Sept 2019 - Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield
Photos by Laura Page:
Thanks to Alice Flanagan for this fantastic review for Now Then Magazine
Manu Delago might be known as a percussionist, but after this show it's clear that it's in his role as composer that his ear is put to best use.
The way Delago's nine-person ensemble played together was mesmerising: nothing over-polished, just organically and comfortably in sync with each other, so much that it's hard to imagine they ever need to rehearse at all. They play like one organism, each with perfect awareness of the others’ thoughts and movements.
This came through visually in their more performative moments. When, for example, the show began in pitch black, each of the nine wearing a headlamp, moving in perfect coordination to dizzying effect. It also came through in their impeccable sound, unified when they chose to be, individually distinguishable when it suited them.
At times their sound was so cohesive that it was difficult to pick apart a singular instrument in the collective sound, at other times one would emerge on its own. A trombone like a rasping moan of an otherworldly animal in distress, a handpan tapping out a fluttering rhythm to evoke the tranquillity of Delago’s childhood home in the Alps, the strings of a finger-plucked violin, raw and joyful.
The first portion of their set came off the new album Circadian, which aims to take the listener through the stages of REM sleep. They achieved their goal of conveying a visceral exploration of sleep, yet not a second of it left the audience remotely sleepy. It's not music to fall asleep to, it's music to be transfixed by, even more excited and riveted by each new composition than the one before.
Nearly every transition saw an audible gasp or groan of awe and pleasure go up in the room. Driving, powerful drum lines, chaotic percussive moments, screeching strings and wailing bassoons. The Picture House was only the second night of their tour, the first being in their home-town of Innsbruck, Austria. They've left themselves no room for improvement.
Manu Delago might be known as a percussionist, but after this show it's clear that it's in his role as composer that his ear is put to best use.
The way Delago's nine-person ensemble played together was mesmerising: nothing over-polished, just organically and comfortably in sync with each other, so much that it's hard to imagine they ever need to rehearse at all. They play like one organism, each with perfect awareness of the others’ thoughts and movements.
This came through visually in their more performative moments. When, for example, the show began in pitch black, each of the nine wearing a headlamp, moving in perfect coordination to dizzying effect. It also came through in their impeccable sound, unified when they chose to be, individually distinguishable when it suited them.
At times their sound was so cohesive that it was difficult to pick apart a singular instrument in the collective sound, at other times one would emerge on its own. A trombone like a rasping moan of an otherworldly animal in distress, a handpan tapping out a fluttering rhythm to evoke the tranquillity of Delago’s childhood home in the Alps, the strings of a finger-plucked violin, raw and joyful.
The first portion of their set came off the new album Circadian, which aims to take the listener through the stages of REM sleep. They achieved their goal of conveying a visceral exploration of sleep, yet not a second of it left the audience remotely sleepy. It's not music to fall asleep to, it's music to be transfixed by, even more excited and riveted by each new composition than the one before.
Nearly every transition saw an audible gasp or groan of awe and pleasure go up in the room. Driving, powerful drum lines, chaotic percussive moments, screeching strings and wailing bassoons. The Picture House was only the second night of their tour, the first being in their home-town of Innsbruck, Austria. They've left themselves no room for improvement.