EMMA WALE & PHILIP KOEBERLE/PADDY McCULLOUGH & HELEN BUTTERFIELD/STU CRANE/ NORTHSTAR
Soundhouse 1st March 2025
Another great afternoon at the The Soundhouse Leicester yesterday... 4 excellent acts 2 totally new to me, two very familiar faces in a different settings...
First up were the band NORTHSTAR who delivered a really great set including a number of excellent originals and some well chosen covers... the jangly 12 string on the Byrds covers particularly appealed to me!.. .but this is a really good band who deserve more attention
Next up was the other new name to me, Stu Crane... Stu was one of the musicians involved in Februarys song writing project so after a couple of older pieces he played a bunch of brand new songs... all somewhat quirky and hugely enjoyable. He ended with a new instrumental piece which i felt he over exteneded to fill his time allotment... and to be honest it went on far too long and became boring... a shame because for me it took some off the gloss off an otherwise cracking set.
Next up was the song writing machine Paddy McCullough accompanied for most of the set by Helen Butterfield on fiddle.
Paddy is always an engaging performer and playing with someone else, especially someone as good as Helen, brings the best out in both players.
Paddy is a guiding light of the Song Writing Project, and writes great songs, and playing songs written in the last few days, he was re-writing them as he played... yet throughout Helen's accompaniment was absolutely spot on despite not having heard the songs until 48 hours earlier, and Paddy re-writing them as he went along!!... Superb performance by two quality musicians whose talents blended perfectly
Last up was 40% of Southern Frontier... Emma Wale and Philip Koeberle playing for the first time as a duo. A different kind of set to the band, featuring mainly songs written by Emma & Philip. The style remains rooted in country and the songs were excellent. Emma's voice continues to get better and stronger and she was in great voice and for the first time playing guitar, while Philip's guitar playing is as always outstanding.
The duo had probably not prepared enough material, and ended by playing a few more familiar songs including a fully acoustic "Jolene"... after which they invited Chris the new guitarist with Southern Frontier, to join them while they ran through a few familiar but totally unrehearsed numbers... another really great set
Great afternoon... 4 really great acts!!
Keep music live... keep music real... support your local venues
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