Not all Christmas concerts have tinsel and fairy lights, not all have you rockin' around a Christmas tree or wishin' it could be Christmas every day. Not all are polished to a high sheen or come gift wrapped. Some Christmas concerts are dark and frosty, they are full of shadows and the glimmer of a lone candle.
JACKIE OATES & JOHN SPIERS and, in support, COOPER & TOLLER, very definitely left the gaudy, commercialised crassness at home and, instead, brought forth the spirits of an entirely different festive season.
Both Jackie (multiple BBC Folk Award winner) and John (just finished the amazing Bellowhead tour) have graced the Downend stage at Christmas time before. This time things are a little bit different though. Firstly, they are here because of the tragic loss of Paul Sartin (his duo Belshazzar's Feast were originally booked to play this one) so the lack of twinkly festive thrills is hardly surprising. Secondly this show was beamed live into living rooms (thanks to a link-up with LIVE TO YOUR LIVING ROOM), meaning that, along with a packed Christ Church Downend, folks were tuning in from Colorado, New Mexico, Hamburg and other far flung (and much warmer) places. It might have been different but this was still a very sophisticated present, wrapped in the blackest of paper.
Essentially their set broke down into two pieces. One was a carefully curated set of Winter-y songs - heavy on the symbolism, light on the Nativity story - and one was a selection of instrumental tunes that were plucked from all around the world and, with just Jackie's fiddle and John's melodeon, brought forth images of circle dances and carousing from long ago.
Of the Winter-y ones, The Trees They're All Bare glistened like frost on a field, the two voices ringing out in perfect harmony as the song ended. Sofuou Unga Astin Min, an Icelandic lullaby, was utterly heartbreaking and sharp as ice. It shivered with a darkness, hardly surprising as it's a song sung by a mother before throwing her baby into a river. It was as Winter-y as they come.
The Worthy Wood Carol was another that reminded us that Christmas is not all fun and games but had the Spiers melodeon doing extraordinary things. How does he make it sound like that? Equally remarkable was Jackie Oates' voice, always on the verge of cracking but imbuing everything with an honesty that others can only wish for. Her own Robin Tells of Winter featured a whole flock of birds and the sweetest trill of her viola. It was lovely.
In a set sprinkled with high points O Come, O Come Emmanuel was glorious. Sung (and hummed) back to the altar by the faithful, it was the perfect encapsulation of this shadowy evening. Even the heathens in the audience couldn't help but be moved.
The sets of tunes set a slightly different tone. John reminded us that many of these tunes had their feet firmly in Christmas, and January, traditions and were for dancing, for squeezing a little celebration and fun from a hard-working life. There was a Welsh waltz, a French set, a celebration of the Straw Bear, lace making tunes, quirky English things and a miner's hornpipe. All played with a virtuoso's hand, all designed to chase the shadows away. Or embrace them.
COOPER & TOLLER are stalwarts of many a West Country folk club. They start with two stark and lovely carols from Gloucestershire including an acapella version of I Saw Three Ships (featuring just Two Ships). Vicky Cooper's voice is a delightfully traditionally folk-y one and Richard Toller adds intricate garlands on mandolin and guitar. Their version (by way of a Chris Wood arrangement) of While Shepherds Watched is perfect for this cold and crisp December evening.
The Jackie Oates & John Spiers Christmas certainly cares just as much about the darkness as the light. Just as much about the shadows as the fairy lights. Just as much for the workers as the party-heads. Theirs is a Christmas for all.
Words: Gavin McNamara
Photo: Barry Savell
Two bona-fide legends of the UK folk scene headline our ever-popular Christmas concert, which will also be streamed online in partnership with LIVE TO YOUR LIVING ROOM.
Multi award-winning contemporary folk artists JACKIE OATES & JOHN SPIERS meld together their shared love of English traditional folk tunes and songs with their fine voices and expertly played acoustic instruments.
The gathered music-lovers can look forward to a fresh, uplifting and poignant evening. The concert will include music from the duo’s first album Needle Pin, Needle Pin, released in early 2020 as well as a selection of Christmas songs, with the duo visiting old and new carols from the folk tradition.
Although followers of British folk music will be familiar with Jackie and John from their other high calibre bands, this collaboration began quite innocently and spontaneously when the pair first started playing together for fun during guest spots at Nettlebed Folk Club in Henley-on-Thames. Recognising the potential, they began working together on material from their native county of Oxfordshire.
Joining Jackie & John on the bill will be locally-based traditional folk duo COOPER &TOLLER, who will get the music underway with a 25-minute set at 7.45pm.
Vicky Cooper & Richard Toller sing solo and in harmony, sometimes unaccompanied and sometimes accompanied on a range of instruments including fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. With a repertoire ranging from murder ballads to bawdy drinking songs, their material may be hundreds of years old but their approach is energetic, sophisticated and timeless.
Tickets for the event, which takes place at CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 16 December 2022, are available HERE and from MELANIE'S KITCHEN in Downend (cash only). They are priced at £14 each in advance or £16 on the door. Doors open at 7.30pm and the music starts around 7.45pm. Tickets for the online stream are available HERE, with a range of prices available. All tickets for the original Christmas concert, which was due to be headlined by Belshazzar’s Feast before the untimely death of Paul Sartin, remain valid for the concert.
In the venue, there will be a bar, stocking cider, soft drinks, wine, hot drinks and locally-brewed real ale from locally-based HOP UNION BREWERY. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own glass/mug/tankard, as well as reusable bottles for water, as part of the drive to be more environmentally aware. There is a 50p discount for those that do. There will also be sweet treats available at the bar courtesy of the Radstock-based GREAT CAKE COMPANY, as well as a prize draw, which helps to fund the support artists for each concert. Refreshments for the online version are down to you!
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There’s been a growing sense of excitement about JANICE BURNS & JON DORAN over the last couple of years. Since they met while studying on the folk music degree at Newcastle University, their names have been on the lips of those “in the know”. Since they released their self-titled EP during lockdown, more and more people have been whispering about them. Tonight, the music-lovers of Downend gathered to find out what all the excitement was about.
Janice & Jon lived up to the hype, and then some. Continuing a long tour in support of their debut album No More the Green Hills, the pair delivered a performance that confirmed what everyone has been whispering… that this is a top-quality young duo destined for great things.
Just down the road in Bath tonight, folk giants Bellowhead had people jumping around and shaking the rafters. This was a different sort of evening altogether, though, as Janice & Jon’s close harmonies and intricate instrumental arrangements filled the beautiful surroundings of Christ Church Downend and had the audience mesmerised from the very first notes of their opening song, The Black Fox.
Englishman Jon Doran, originally from not too far from here in the Cotswolds but now based in the North East, is as talented as he is tall. A fine bouzouki and guitar player, Jon also possesses a rich, deep voice that oozes quality. Janice Burns, from Glasgow but also based in Newcastle, is the perfect foil. She plays the mandolin, the instrument for which she is primarily known, with such a delicacy that you could almost cry, and turns out to be a rather good tenor guitar player too. As a singer, her voice is as close to perfection as you’ll hear, whether singing melody, harmony or in Scots, as on The Song of the Fishgutters.
Two brilliant musicians, but it’s when they come together that the magic happens. There’s no need for an 11-strong juggernaut here; two is more than enough. Their voices intertwine and swirl around the church, and the two seem to have an almost telepathic sense of what is required instrumentally. They fill the gaps that the other leaves with such a precision that it must have taken hours of planning and practising, but you’d never know, such is the natural delivery.
There’s no better example of this than on As I Roved Out, a massive highlight in an evening packed with highlights, while the latest single, The Corncrake, also stands out.
Opening the evening was Bristol-based singer/songwriter Dan Weltman. Perhaps best known locally from his indie-rock band Snails, or as one third of old-time string band The Ninetree Stumblers, Dan has recently released his first solo album Rivers In My Mind, and he takes the audience on a whistle-stop tour of his material, which is surprisingly sensitive, almost introspective and beautifully delivered. Another name to watch.
But it’s Janice & Jon’s evening, and the audience rightly demand an encore, the duo choosing Up and Awa’ for their final number. And there can be absolutely no doubting that that’s the direction their career is heading. More please.
Words: Bea Furlong
Photo: Alan Cole
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