Roy Harper - Colston Hall, Bristol, 27th October, 2013

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.