Reviews
STEELEYE’S LAST STAND ?
TAUNTON ODEON
Reviewed by David Housham
© New Musical Express
20 Aug 1977
Picture it: in a thousand odorously 'Old Clan' little pubs, the folkies spilling cider down their Fair-Isles and gagging on their briars with uncontrolled gleeful cries of "We told you so" and 'They've seen sense at last' at the news that those two nasty rock musicians had left Steeleye Span and had been replaced by the blue-eyed super-heros of the Olde worlde, John Kirkpatrick and Martin Carthy.
But I felt rather sad on hearing of Bob Johnson and Peter Knight's departure from Steeleye, and was feeling equally apprehensive as I sat waiting to see the first public performance by the new line-up. I was clearly not alone, as the band have changed their original plans and decided to test audience reactions with some low-key dates in Britain before embarking on a world tour.
Grabbing Carthy at the first sign of trouble seemed such a dull move for a group with Steeleye's reputation for unorthodoxy, a hint of panic maybe but in the light of Hart and Prior's continuing affiliation with the ultraconservative folk scene, a predictable move. And in predictable fashion, Steeleye (if you'll forgive a quick outburst of labels) after moving boldly last year from folk-rock to virtually straight rock music, have now regressed into being the electric folk band they were in 1974 and before.
They begin the evening's entertainment with a few jigs and reels (during which Maddy is not on stage ) interspersed with some of their older songs like 'Saucy Sailor' from 'Below The Salt' - and several things become immediately obvious. Firstly, everyone is understandably nervous - but even taking that into consideration, there seems to be an awful amount of uncomfortably vacant space on stage, especially when Maddy is absent. Kirkpatrick and Carthy, completely absorbed in their playing and almost positioned in the wings, are apparently unaware that there are fifteen hundred eyes trained devotedly upon them. The eccentric humour and personality of Peter Knight are decidedly missed, leaving Nigel Pegrum, precariously perched on his high drum riser, as the only visual focal point. Secondly, the sound of Steeleye Span has changed considerably, since Kirkpatrick's accordion now dominates. However despite the fact that accordions are one of my blank spots, always conjuring up images of Captain Pugwash and Nick Lobo, I am able to appreciate that they play some fine traditional tunes.
At length we get quite a surprise when Kirkpatrick and Carthy are left alone on stage and Kirkpatrick, with bells around his knees and hankies in his hands, proceeds to do a Morris dance entitled 'Love's A Plum Pudding'. Now a bunch of Morris dancers look stupid enough, but I can tell you that a lone Morris dancer looks just plain ridiculous. The place for this is not the concert hall. It's for purists only, and is sure to dumbfound the majority of Steeleye's rock-oriented audience - for example the row of Portuguese kids who are constantly popping off Instamatic flash bulbs and babbling away about Pink Floyd.
Things improve a great deal as Rick Kemp (on acoustic guitar), Tim Hart (on banjo) and Maddy perform a beautiful, gentle ballad called 'Some Rival Has Stolen My Lover Away', one of the evening's high spots, followed by good vocal workouts from Kirkpatrick and Carthy in two songs about prisons. But wait! Oh no - they've all rushed off staged again and, worse, have returned in tweed waistcoats and berets to trip gaily through another traditional dance, this time of the sword variety, with taped accompaniment. They do not seem to be very good - only marginally better than Bruce Forsyth and other senile old bores camping it up on the Generation Game.
Up to this point the whole show has seemed like some disjointed Rolling thunder Revue with the band utilising only the members each particular song demands. However for the last half hour of the set there is a much stronger edge to their music and they sound more like the band I had come wanting to see. Even the Portuguese kids shut up. Songs like 'Awake, Awake' and 'Cam Ye O'er Frae France' (which received the best applause of the evening) feature some magnificently rich and sonorous harmonies; Maddy has never Sung better and at last the band began to creep towards folk-rock.
Regrettably they never creep quite far enough; Kirkpatrick's spell with Richard Thompson showed that accordions don't necessarily decimate rock rhythms, but unfortunately for Steeleye Span, neither Hart nor Carthy can play electric guitar like Thompson or Bob Johnson. Carthy in particular seems completely uninterested in exploring the vast power that lurks within the instrument, and in terms of folk-rock they make Fairport seem like Status Quo.
Not that it's limp-wristed girlish electric folk with a rhythm section of Kemp and Pegrum that would be impossible. But on the other hand they're not up to 'Thomas The Rhymer', and while it might be over-reacting to throw words like snobbery about, Kirkpatrick looks positively embarrassed singing 'Rave On', during the encore.
I was ultimately disappointed with Steeleye's lack of adventure. I don't think they're going to fill large foreign stadia or sell albums in America with this present material - it all seems like an artistic and commercial mistake. Moreover Carthy and Kirkpatrick's firm intention to continue their respective solo careers doesn't augur well for the band's collective future.
Undoubtedly the forthcoming world tour will settle matters one way or another. Perhaps we'll see mass global conversion to Morris dancing yet.