From jigs through to solid yet melodic rock, Almost Autumn carefully picked their way through an altered set list to compensate for the missing key member. The stunning twosome of Heather Findlay (voice, guitar, tambourine, recorders & whistles) and Angela Goldthorpe (flute, recorders & voice) took us on a passionate musical voyage lasting the best part of two hours. A voyage of superbly structured songs that took us, in our minds, rambling over mountains and through leafy glades, meeting people from other worlds. To quote from the club gig listings, "Like the season of Autumn itself, the music has a romantic, organic quality and a rare naturalness..." Just about sums it up perfectly - if Marzy wrote that them I'm impressed. If he plagiarised it them I'm still impressed because it's bang on!!
Liam Jennings (guitars & voice) pulled off some great vocals in Bryan's stead; his guitar style very similar to that of Pink Floyd's David Gilmore - soaring notes pouring effortlessly into the air. The rhythm section of Andy Smith (bass) and Jonathan Blackmore (drums) was cleverly solid and supportive - ever present but never overpowering. Behind and around the rest of the band Iain Jennings (keyboards & voice) laid down stunningly beautiful, often awesome passages; sounds that seemed to fill every dark corner of the room with a musical warmth.
The opening number put resident sound engineer Shaun Halliwell to the test as he carefully adjusted the mix and balance the allow the more subtle sounds of flute and voice through the maze of electric sounds. Then, early on we experienced the captivating and haunting sound of 'The Spirit Of Autumn Past', a typically Floydesque number which seemed to settle the band into their task for the evening. A positive wealth of original material then poured out; 'Noise From My Head', 'Shrinking Violet' just two of the great songs offered tonight.
Mostly Autumn seem to have found a musical niche for themselves which works extremely well. Some might say that it's music from twenty years ago. No matter, great songs played superbly and with absolute belief and judging from the number of band T shirts in the audience tonight they obviously have a large and faithful following. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening with Mostly Autumn and even 'she that must be obeyed' said that this was the best band she'd seen on Marr's. Who am I to argue, if she's happy then so am I!! Seriously though, it did work - it certainly worked for their faithful followers and it seemed to work equally well for those new to Mostly Autumn. If they come back, so will I.
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