Reviews
ARE STEELEYE STILL HAPPY!
Hammersmith Odeon
Reviewed by Hugh Fielder
© Sounds
4 Dec 1976
Aside from the money, Mr. Fielder, how did you enjoy the show?
Funny you should ask. I'm not one of your Steeleye cynics, all's fair in love and folk-rock (as the inscription reads on Dave Pegg's T-shirt) and as far as I'm concerned, Steeleye are taking folk to the folk. It may annoy the purists but purism doesn't pay the mortgage and the members of Steeleye have put more back into folk music than they've taken out.
So I'm primed for the show. I even accept the 30-minute delay before supporting artist Martin Simpson comes on (though in retrospect I should complain) because he does his spot well, pulling his material from such diverse sources as Scotland, America (banjo country) and Guy Clark. He's a dextrous guitarist and banjo player with a nice line in between-song chat to boot. The crowd, I'm interested to see, are almost all out of their teens which means that Steeleye haven't lost the support of folk fans in London at any rate. And the crush at the bar is clear enough evidence that they are indeed folk fans. So it's eyes down and away we go. The house lights dim and the safety curtain rises to reveal Steeleye in position, waiting to start. Someone's forgotten to turn all the stage lights off.
They start, appropriately enough, with 'London' and it goes OK but the lighting crew seem to be carrying out a dress rehearsal with spots going everywhere and the floods coming on and off completely out of time. It's a shame because they've gathered a considerable amount of lighting gear around them: five pylons on stage, five spotlights from behind and two in front, but at no point during the show do they ever seem to co-ordinate with one another.
But that's just a presentation gripe. It's the musk I'm more worried about. Virtually all the material presented in the show is from their last two albums, 'Rocket Cottage' and , 'All Around My Hat', which is as it should be. 'Black Jack Davy', 'Hard Times Of Old England', 'The Twelve Witches', 'Orfeo', 'The Wife Of Ushers Well', 'The Brown Girl', 'Come Ye All For France' 'and (as an encore) 'All Around My Hat', and a rare reappearance of 'Gaudete' whizzed by at Speed. The sound balance was first class and we even got one or two optional extras like the superb close harmony of 'The Bosnian Pipes' and a ludicrous duet between Tim Hart and Peter Knight which consisted of counting from one to ten in German repeatedly!
And that was it. Steeleye went through the motions and played the songs but it ended there. It upset me. I went home and played right through their last two albums to reassure myself. There's more zest on the albums than there was on-stage at Hammersmith and that's not right.
Alright, I know it's the end of a long and arduous American, European and British tour but it's not quite as easy as that. Frankly some of them looked as if they'd rather not have been there. Perhaps they've been rather hoisted on their own petard by their own reputation as one of the best performing bands around but there was no excuse for some of the sullen looks that emanated from the stage. I exempt from criticism Maddy Prior (to whom I also offer profuse apologies for referring to as Maggie in my review of their last album) who devoted herself to the audience unceasingly and danced up and down the aisles at the end, and drummer Nigel Pegrum who worked himself up into a lather providing a solid basis for the group.
But it was only the band's professionalism that kept the music alive. I'm the last person in the world to put showmanship before music but it seemed to me that they never even put themselves wholeheartedly into the music.
Something was definitely amiss and I hope it's only temporary because Steeleye Span have come too far and have too much to offer to turn back now.