CHRIS CONWAY/AUTUMN DAWN LEADER/HONEST DAVE
Musician Pub 3rd December 2023
This was a show I had been looking forward to... arranged by Autumn Dawn Leader and billed as an Afternoon of Otherworldy Enchantment and it delivered all of that and so much more...
it was great to see the large crowd not being put off by the awful weather, and there was a mellow feeling of peace and joy in the room from the off...
There was an air of anticipation running though the crowd as the opening act, Honest Dave & Sharon Collier took the stage. Dave & Shaz are a real delight of an act. Dave plays a 12 string guitar and builds up layers of harmony and rhythm as well as vocals to create a lovely texture of sound which remains clean and uncluttered while Shaz plays mellow saxophone which complements Dave guitar work perfectly. Dave's songs are always interesting, at times political and with an edge of social comment, but never preachy. They are beautifully crafted and always worth paying attention to.
One particular song dealt with a lady in Rwanda who saved 200 people from the mobs massacring all in sight.. because the mobs feared she was a witch and were scared of her... (seems an ideal country to export people to!!). During this Shaz gracefully and simply mimed the actions in described in the song.. which added to the impact.
A really delightful set enjoyed by the whole audience.
Next up was the organiser.. the awesome Autumn Dawn Leader: Songmistress. Her voice is sublime... powerful, rich and emotional, she can take it levels and heights beyond imagination.
She started playing the lyre then switched to the more familiar keyboard for the rest of the set.
Autumns songs deal with subjects like angst, love, paganism among others and are consistently high quality... it is difficult to single out individual pieces but worthy of mention are "Bottle" which came out of a songwriting event when challenged to write a song about a word allocated... this one took just 10 minutes... and "Seaweed" after a similar challenge by Andy Griffiths. I particularly liked the song "Spider" which isn't really about a spider.
And absolutely spellbinding, mesmerising set which kept the large audience silent on the edge of their seats throughout... absolutely superb
And finally, to end the day, the uniquely talented and delightful man, Chris Conway. Mind you, Chris is probably now thinking i am stalking him...
You never quite know how Chris's set will be made up... he has such a huge range of wonderful songs on so many unlikely and diverse subjects. Chris is a multi instrumentalist accompanying himself on 12 string guitar, keyboard, whistle and calimba and sings in a relaxed engaging way...
His set started as most of the autumns sets have, with "Leaves" exploring the fact that if you catch leaf falling you get a lucky day the following year... he has apparently caught 30 this year... he then moved on to the otherworldly side of his repertoire including such classic pieces as "Vegetarian Vampire", "Monkeys on the Moon", "I wish i was a sasquatch", "Unicorn Girl" among others... in particular a song called "Love" where he explores everything he knows about the subject... It contained just one word... "Love" he then repeated the song with a wonderful harmony from Autumn sitting in the audience.
Happily Chris ended with a personal favourite "Superheroes never die" which shows you can make a serious point in a comic song.
Another wonderful set to end what had been a really wonderful afternoon... and huge credit to Dave & Shaz, Autumn and Chris for entertaining the large audience so well with gentle acoustic music... it was a joy
Keep music live... keep music real... support your local venues
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