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Joan Baez - Gone From Danger Tour with Richard Shindell, Betty and Gene Elders, Adam Kirk, Mark Peterson and Carol Steele
When Dar Williams played Bristol last November her audience were reluctant to let her go after four encores. Just a year later Joan Baez inspired a Colston Hall audience to similar heights of appreciation. For over two hours the American singer and her ensemble of musicians and songwriters lifted spirits right up to the theatre's high ceilings. It was a perfect setting for such a concert. The Colston Hall a grand Edwardian edifice steeped in history. An receptive audience who appreciated great music. An artist and a collective of musicians who could deliver it in spades. Joan Baez walked on stage dressed for an English winter in a long black dress. She welcomed the stalls, the balconies to the show before perching herself on a high stool. Her guitar sat on a neat lap rest device that saved the need for shoulder pads. The audience waited in hushed expectancy. With an impeccably finger picked intro Joan Baez opened with Dar Williams, written in an Austin motel room stunner, If I Wrote You. The guitar work just sang. Her voice as fresh, as sweet as morning rain. I was on the edge of my chair. It was only the first number. Then the band came on, two native Americans and a guy from the Isle of Wight. Mark Peterson to play superb subtle, funky bass lines. Carol Steele assembled herself behind an myriad of wind chimes and congas from where she stoked up the heat on the songs all night. Adam Kirk sat down side of stage and plugged in a guitar. I was as proud as folk to see him there, both of us from same neck of the woods, the Isle of Wight. Last year he had made Sinead Lohan's Cambridge Festival appearance something special. Now he's wandered out to paint rhythms behind Joan Baez's vocal on Lohan's I Am No Mermaid. Baez alludes to Sinead Lohan as being "Young and mystical," the senstivity of her arrangement doing full justice to a beautiful song. Just how special tonight was going to be was demonstrated when Gene Elders, the five string fiddle master and Austin resident came on stage. The band rested their instruments. Elders held his violin like a ukelele. Joan Baez deft fingers picked out the intro to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Elders plucked notes followed the line of Rick Danko's original bass and Levon Helm's superb drop step drum play. Then he soloed on the choruses as sweet as Tennessee sipping whiskey. The whole band, Peterson, Kirk, Steele sang on the choruses. A masterpiece of cinematic proportions. Richard Shindell's Reunion Hill continued where Dixie left off. It was written, as Joan Baez explained, from a young wife's point of view. A woman whose husband goes off to fight in the Civil War. It touched on the desperation of the widow searching amongst the returning soldiers for her man. She says: "I cleaned the brow of many a soldier, dousing for my husband's face." Richard Shindell came onstage to sing it with Joan Baez. Carol Steele shifted behind Adam Kirk to play a Cuban instrument. It was no more than a wooden shoe box but she shuffled a rhythm out of it that was a joy to hear. Just gave the whole arrangement a loose marching band in the street lope to it. Mark Peterson had switched to electric double bass. Adam Kirk, head down driving his whole emotion along that fretboard, into chords, little fills with an intensity that is his trademark. At the front mikes Joan Baez paired with Richard Shindell to give the song the majestic icing on the cake. When I heard it I wanted every Shindell album I might lay my hands on. The stage line up would change once again when Richard Shindell left and Betty Elders came on to support Joan Baez on a rendition of her emotive song Crack In the Mirror. It was a song hung with sadness. A little girl abused by her father's hired hand still bearing the scars ten years on. A song that rose and fell on a boiling sea of an arrangement. The combination of Mark Peterson's bass line pushed on by Carol Steele's shifting funk rhythms and Adam Kirk's guitar chords ran gorgeously under the vocals. It was a stunner. As was the song that followed Long Bed from Kenya. The band had left the stage to just the Elders and Joan Baez. Long bed from Kenya is another subtle, sparse song by Betty Elders. The blend of Baez and Betty Elders voices drifted above the guitars and plaintive burr of Gene Elders fiddle. I was enjoying every nuance, every turn and contrast as this evening unrolled like a Persian carpet before me. The band returned as Joan Baez struggled with her tunings. She took the opportunity to lighten her frustration at tripping over the intro by putting on one of those hackneyed 'frightfully British' accents to poke fun with the crowd. I forgave her. After all we Brits know that America is not inhabited by Elmers and Edna's who carry video cameras and wear absurd check trousers. No one says 'Gee Elmer . . .' Do they? No matter Joan Baez continued with an emotive rendition of Joe Hill then directly switched to a song that she embarrasingly recalls she wrote with two Nashville tin pan alley songwriters. Her description of the lady coming in to sit down in a short skirt and make up with a notepad to ask: "Now honey what would you like a waltz or a rocker . . ." had me and the audience creased up. The countrified Lily worked though. Full of little touches from one class band. Lily fell into a funky as hell conga solo from Carol Steele. She's a lady with an infectious rollicking way. All laughs and lets have fun. Had the rhythms all sown up. Took the beat down to just one hand deadening the conga by leaning her arm on it like she was perched at a bar. Joan Baez left the stage and the whole band just listened to this marvellous five or ten minute solo performance. Carol Steele ended it with a belly laugh to fill the Hall. Her fingers tapped out the last notes on the conga like rain spitting on a window pane and her elbow dampening down the sound again. Superb. The evening continued to unfold contrasts. Whether the songs were sparse or chock full of instrumentation Joan Baez remained the key to the whole evening. She returned to the stage again after her short break. Just Joan Baez perched on a stool before this packed auditorium. She began with that 'prisoner' song as charged with emotion as ever. Followed it with what sounded like a traditional song. One she would dedicate to her mother. "She's in the audience, where are you mum?," asked the singer peering out into the stalls. Mum was located. The audience gave her a huge round of applause. The song took on a special significance for everyone. One sad lament. She had 'us', the audience in the palm of her hand. "You like sad ones, eh?" She asked. Could not have picked a more perfect time to feature what I consider one of her most emotive songs, Diamonds and Rust. The imagery of Dylan phoning from a booth in the midwest and the dreams, the disappointments of a whole generation are wrapped up in that song. Tonight it was as stunning as ever. Her guitar playing is supreme on this one. Beautiful clean plucked notes, evocative chord progressions. Joan Baez ended it by singing "If you offer me diamonds and rust, I'll take the diamonds" with a gregarious howl of laughter that swept up the audience. Wow. Time for Joan Baez to take a tea break. She welcomed Betty and Gene Elders and Richard Shindell to the stage again and departed. Shindell has been co-erced into not only introducing a Betty Elders song but singing it as well. If one song takes me back to Austin, Texas tonight this is it. I could have shut my eyes and been right there at the Waterloo Ice House hearing this. It is such a simple, effective song. Long lines drawn superbly by Gene Elders violin. Shindell's aching rendition coupled with Betty Elders warm spring in Texas voice.
Once again the scenary changes with Shindell and the Elders leaving the stage for the return of Joan Baez and her band. Joan Baez refers to the cold of the Manchester Apollo last night which ran all around the theatre. Someone shouts from the audience to ask if she is warmer tonight which raises a laugh. Joan Baez introduces another Sinead Lohan song which strikes the singer as being about a kid who asks it's parents "Who do you think I am . . .?" Who Do You Think I Am is another cracking rendition of a Sinead Lohan song. I am watching Adam Kirk. He has his back to me but it is such that I don't need to see his fingers to know to see how he is bent into the fretboard that he is putting all his soul right into those chords. Like this whole band tonight. A band that is intent on delivering the music to complement the majesty of Baez's vocals rather than upstage them. As the song finished Joan Baez mentioned about the food on tour which is pretty damn good because the group has its own caterer. A lady shouts 'Happy Thanksgiving' from behind me which brings a warmth of smiles to a band of homesick American's on stage. Richard Shindell returned to the stage to sing his song Fishing with Joan Baez. It's a great tale about a borderlands immigration officer interrogating a Mexican. Sounded like it came straight out of Lone Star, the movie. Shindell's Money For Floods followed which was one of those songs that needed to be written. Written from the view of a young single mother struggling for money and watching as the 'unfortunates' get money for flood damaged properties that were built in flood prone areas. It takes the 'piece' out of the President. Hammers on the same door that Baez was kicking at when she walked the Streets of Memphis with Dr. Martin Luther King back in the sixties. The Baez, Shindell pairing laying bare the songs emotive message. Mark Peterson played more evocative electric double bass and Carol Steele shuffled magic out of the cahoon. Adam Kirk's guitar work just sending thrills down my spine. Shindell departed the stage again and Gene Elders joined the band. Baez introduced a "folk song written in the 70s but tuned in the fifties," a reference to the attempts to get her electronic tuner, fixed to the mike, to get her in tune. Once again not having every album I didn't know what the tune was called. It started with the words: "Apartment in the city, Loretta like being there . . ." I am also unfamiliar with the Indigo Girls. Not with who they are, but their music. Baez ever the champion of songwriters to check out does a song that she regards as "One that will become a modern classic." It is called Welcome Me To The City of Angels. It was so bloody stunning. I had religion without a preacher. Mark Peterson hung a vocal in half way through that had me close to a tear. Adam and Carol Steele sang so beautifully. And up there on the front microphone Joan Baez shone. Adam's guitar work had my stomach turning and eyes filling with emotion. Jeeze if that was good they followed it with the greatest version of Leonard Suzanne's that I ever heard live. Adam played bottleneck guitar through it. It was so different from anything I have ever heard done. It was so bloody sweet. The whole band just knew when to fly and when wait. Joan Baez's Play Me Backwards was the corking closer. It kicked from end to end. Carol Steele's latin back beat and beautiful vocals, Kirks guitar work pushing the song up and on. The bass play, and Joan Baez so effortless, so sweet, so supreme. I was up out of my seat pumping my hands raw and shouting for more. The whole band linked arms with Joan Baez and the crowd went whaoooo. When Joan Baez returned with the whole entourage people were shouting for songs. "Do one by Bobby," someone shouted. "Bobby who?" Joan Baez teased. Then collective loped into Dylan's Don't Think Twice That's All Right. Baez looked at Adam Kirk for him to solo. For one split hair's breadth he seemed like he slipped a note before regaining himself to unpeel an unbelievable solo. I could see Gene Elders just grooving holding his violin like a relay man waiting for the batten. Saw one of the great violin players just digging every note that this young guy from the Isle of Wight was laying down. Then he took up the batten and let a lovely relaxed stream of fiddle playing go. They left the stage to mass applause. No one was leaving, just standing up wolf whistling, clapping filling the place with cries for more. Back they came. Joan Baez figured on a Spanish song with a sing along chorus (Gracias a la vida, here's to life). It was just bloody amazing to be in this sea of people singing chorus after chorus. The whole stage kicking this beautiful Mexican flavoured boogie down. Then Adam Kirk uncorked a solo right in the middle of it all that sounded like he had spent his life hanging out in dusty cantina on the Tex Mex border. The whole band turned a sombero rhythm on its head with a rampant marachi back beat. The audience roared their approval. Off the band went. The audience still insisting on more. Back they came. "Come back next year and do it again," shouted a Bristol accent from the back of the hall. "Come back next week," added another to mass laughter. What next? What could follow that? Paul Simon's The Boxer. Time had stopped. The world was somewhere else. The whole band singing behind Joan Baez's lead vocals. Betty Elders vocals so sweet from behind the congas. She lifted the whole audience up into one mass clap along boogie from the back of the stage. Carol Steele just cooked along with Peterson and Kirk. Salt pepper pots shaking, conga rhythms to make a dead parrot dance. Joan Baez departed the stage with the audience's roars ringing in her ears. Some people brought her flowers and she had given us something very special. A voice like Tupelo honey. A performance to treasure like a Gaughan painting. Its going to be etched right in here for a long time. Mike Plumbley Gone From Danger is Joan Baez's latest album out on Grapevine in England. It features the songs of Dar Williams, Sinead Lohan, Richard Shindell, Betty Elders and Mark Addison. Full details on Joan Baez and the performers from: Our Festival section includes a pic of Joan Baez at Afton Festival in 1970 See also Charlie Hume's review of Joan Baez's Manchester performance the night before:
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