Magpie Arc

MAGPIE ARC

Musician Pub 25th February 2024

This gig seemed a long time coming.. but tonight at The Musician Pub we saw MAGPIE ARC, folk rock supergroup featuring five outstanding musicians with enviable CV's... Martin Simpson (electric guitar/vocals) Nancy Kerr (fiddle/vocals/guitar) Findley Napier (guitar/vocals) Tom Wright (Drums) and Alex Hunter (bass)

The sell out crowd were in place early for this one, with virtually every seat and standing place occupied some 10 minutes before the doors were due to open and were buzzing with anticipation!!

We were promised a performance of something new updating the earlier folk/rock scene and that is about right... This band is magnificent, playing some traditional ballads in purely folky style, some new original songs were pure rock'n'roll and the rest were an exciting hybrid of the two.

The set is a mixture of traditional ballads, original material written by the band, primarily i think Nancy and Findley as well as some more familiar work by writers such as Townes Van Zandt & Mike Waterson (any band covering songs by these two cant be bad!!) and, for me a special word for Martin's performance of Leon Rossellsons "Palaces of Gold" which he introduced as a "song that still needs to be sung". This was Martin's solo piece, accompanying himself with some beautiful slide guitar work.

Findley solo'd with a lovely original song for his daughter and Nancy excelled with a child ballad accompanied by her fiddle.

The band are a real powerhouse driven by the superb rhythm section of Tom and Alex... both played superbly throughout the set.

Up front both Nancy and Findley are fine singers and Nancy is a terrific fiddle player. Findley plays a driving rhythm guitar and Martin's guitar playing is rightly revered.

We went along with high expectations and the band delivered and lived up to it and then some... a wonderful evening... a terrific band delivering a terrific set over the best part of 2 hours.

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