Still Batting at the Crease
On the same day as septuagenarian Lou Reed passed, I was
watching septuagenarian Roy Harper playing a blissful if understandably
reflective gig at Bristol. Many of his generation of musical greats are leaving
us, not surprisingly because of their age and the ravages of, for quite a few,
lives lived in a lane most of us could only ever imagine travelling – through we
have journeyed by proxy through their wonderful songs – and this vulnerability
on the continuing spiral of life’s mortal coil for those still performing adds
that extra poignancy, if a little sentimental, in seeing them perhaps one last
time.
Not that Harper seemed ready to go anywhere, other than home
for a deserved rest after a truly wonderful and full performance on a night
that presaged storms which never really bothered us in Bristol, nor on the
still uplifted journey back to my home afterwards. Indeed, with respect to
aging, Harper was self-effacing – and a little naughty, for two reasons – when
he introduced the beautiful song January
Man from his latest album Man and
Myth. It was ‘naughty’ because he firstly claimed it was a song about a 70
year old man lusting after 25 year old women and being ignored [joking he’d
forgotten to look in the mirror in the morning], and secondly because he
actually made light of the song’s meaning in this way where in fact it is so
clearly and tenderly and movingly about growing older, having regrets but also the
honesty to articulate this.
Accompanied by a beautiful string and
brass ensemble, playing arrangements by David Bedford who Harper remembered fondly, and
by Jonathan Wilson who produced Harper’s latest [and performed an opening solo
spot, a delightful bonus on the night], Roy played a surprising number from Man and Myth – pleasing me and my close
friend also there, and who had seen Roy with Led Zeppelin at Bath in 1969 – and
these included the other sweet track Time
is Temporary and the epic Heaven is
Here. Roy’s vocal was so strong. As I recently commented when reviewing M&M, his bass to falsetto range is
still impressive on record, and now confirmed live too: absolutely startling.
And the guitar work also continues to be so distinctive and brilliant.
Other highlights in two sets of sustained highlights were Me and My Woman and the delicate,
gorgeous North Country Girl. I
thought that after my emotional reaction to seeing Crosby, Stills and Nash recently
I might have a similar response, a response born from an accumulation of overwrought
nostalgia through seeing these great artists in the twilight of their careers
and lives: it is in what they represent through their talents and how the music prompts
the reverie of times gone and, as a consequence, the brush with that fragility
and vulnerability I mentioned at the start of this review – but I didn’t. And
when Roy closed on an encore of When An
Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, I simply wanted him to play on and on,
uplifted, as I have said, by his commanding presence in the here and now and by
his continuing intellect, wry humour and enjoyment in performing.
