Beware The Folk Police - For Knitted Meat Is Wrong.



To The Philharmonic Hall last night for a rattling good show by the impossibly-sweet-voiced Kate Rusby, a woman so confident that you'd think she was talking to her mates down the pub instead of the jumper-wearing folkies of Liverpool and environs. Intra-song conversation ranged from the lack of sandwiches in M&S on Bank Holidays, via the ace idea of having swans on stage, to a gentle argument with Ian Carr, one of her guitarists/multi-instrumentalists over how many nipples her dog Doris had (either eight or ten). But of course in between the in-betweens, were beautiful songs that filled the stage in a way that surpassed both Evelyn Glennie and Jah Wobble, who have also walked this stage. A voice beyond beautiful - Beatrice gets her second mention of the week here - raised up to some sort of cross-time folk goddess. Ms Rusby brings a little bit of every past era to show us how happy we could be if only we tried - she is the kids playing knock-down-ginger in the background of Norman Wisdom films- she is the clog-dances of the shabby poor of Orwell's Wigan Pier - the songs of the soldiers off to war in 1914 - the parlour songs of Mr Darcy put to new tunes of her own devising. Each time a leap back in time but without any perceived distance - "We know it is fiction." she says "but not when we sing - then we truly believe it." Think of how you cry at the end of The Railway Children - and multiply by it by all her songs and you might get there some day. The whole world is blown to the perimeter by this - nothing matters - just this room - this sound. And there were recipes and a knitted, green Gary Numan that I wish I had bought.

While amusing herself by taking random photos from the car on the way home, daughter asked who the folk-police ("who reside in London") are. She seemed to believe that they were a proper organisation with a big building - possibly fronted by a giant set of slowly-turning bagpipes. Had to try and explain and did not manage it very well. Kate Rusby does not worry about them. They seem so real to me now that they must have a logo of some sort - a Big-Brother in Chunky jumper and beard - someone do me a Marvel-style drawing. Of course folk music is music of the people and people change over time - by all means celebrate the past but recognize that you cannot stick at one point in time - we all think life was better back then but of course the truth is the save for major catastrophe life gets better and quite a lot better at that. A good week and still not over.