Reviews from Midnight Voices and from the local press
[Photo by Janice Sim, from the earlier session 'It's only Rock'n'Roll... but we like it', in which Pete chaired a
discussion on song lyrics and poetry with Peter Blegvad (left) and Roddy Lumsden]
Andrew Love [MV5779] :
I don't have much faith in my abilities as a reviewer but it seemed I was
deputed to 'do' the setlist for P&C's appearance at the Bath Literary
Festival, so...
The gig was held in an upstairs room, maybe 35 feet by 70 (someone correct
me!) at the Guildhall. High plaster walls with Graeco-Roman decoration and
motifs climbing to a high plaster ceiling. Not unattractive. The whole room
was lit by three enormous chandeliers throughout the performance. The stage
was set along a long side, high enough to afford everyone a view of the
action. The audience numbered, I guess, around 180 of whom maybe
half-a-dozen were Voices. There was a grand piano on the stage (so no
sighting yet of Pete's new keyboard?) and chair which looked rather too
rectangular for the comfort of its intended occupant (Clive). Most of the
audience were accommodated in around ten rows in front of the stage but
there were some chairs set out at each side - about 30 people only got to
see Pete's back when he was at the piano. The other disadvantage with being
at the side was that we were just outside the sound cone of the speakers
which were set at the front corners of the stage, pointing forward. Much of
the sound which reached me seemed to come via the plaster walls, confusing
my ears a little during the louder songs. But then, tinnitus doesn't make me
a reliable arbiter of these things! Anyway...
For the fashion conscious, Pete was wearing a plain mustard shirt with
blue/grey slacks and hidden hosiery (!). Clive was in a dark blue shirt,
dark jeans and a black leather jacket.
Pete opened on the piano with The Man Who Walked Towards The Music -- *lots*
of lovely jazzy piano but (IMHO) just a tinge pacy.
Care Charmer Sleep followed on the guitar. At this point I noticed a woman
opposite obviously doing sketches of P & C -- which, as it turned out later,
were actually watercolours.
Practical Man (guitar), Sessionman's Blues (piano) and Beware Of The
Beautiful Stranger were next, Clive linking the numbers as a kind of career
narrative. The rapport between the two was obvious. Clive made an analogy
between songwriting and making a television programme : you have the words
and the pictures (in the latter) and, in the editing process the two come
together and at some critical point you realise 'that's it' : they have
magically come together in a form which will never be broken.
Perfect Moments on piano -- again, for me, just a trifle fast and the piano
just a trifle aggresive. Then Wristwatch on guitar. Some wag had brought in
a bicycle bell with which he provided the sound effect at the appropriate
point -- tuh! you can't take some people anywhere, can you? ;-)
The Flowers And The Wine (piano). Clive referred to the extensive MV
discussions about this one and, in particular, to the opinion of some that
this was really about P&C : 'well, if it fits, why not?'.
I See The Joker was played on piano, with Clive introducing it as a perfect
example of how Pete's setting skills had picked up the tenor of and
embellished the lyric. A new twist by Pete at the end where he truncated
the last two repetitions of the title, which I thought really effective (if
it was more by accident than by design, Pete, keep it in!!).
A return to matters sartorial when Pete raided his props cupboard and came
back with a cowboy hat for Stranger In Town on guitar. This was followed by
Pete back at the piano for Thirty Year Man which, as Clive wryly observed,
both he and Pete had become.
The last song of the set was a lyric rediscovered only a few days before the
concert. Pete had forgotten about it but when he saw it, everything came
back to him. It's called Star Of Tomorrow and is narrated by the organiser
of a pub gig, recalling the times when Pete would buy a day return from N.
London to go to perform in some windswept Northern town and then come back
on the milk train. I can see this one fast becoming a 'hit' with Voices.
Pete played it on guitar.
Earlier in the piece, Clive had indicated that, because of the internet, bec
ause of the fans never having left and because the music industry has
changed : 'we're back - and maybe we're back to stay'. As the applause
which called them back for an encore died down and Pete repositioned himself
at the piano, he explained that the following song, Ties That Bind You, was
another recent discovery. As we in MV know, it's an unfinished song.
However, Pete and Clive had been working on it - 'fixing it' - in the hours
leading up to the gig, though it may change some more yet before Pete is
finally happy with it. Clive said it 'felt great' to have done this
exercise, working together just as they had done in the past. I do hope
this bodes well for...no no, I'd better not tempt fate!!
Pete and Clive retired to the adjoining room to sign autographs (yours truly
picked up his copy of SD/LL). We hared over to have a look at what the
artist had been doing : three or four unique watercolours had been produced.
Steve and Carole promptly bought the lot! Maybe we'll all get to see them
on the website at some point in the future?
The whole concert was very well received and enjoyed by everyone - including
the performers - and the CDs seemed to selling like Sally Lunn's hotcakes!
And so out into the rain : well, I guess if you go to Bath you have to
expect to get wet!
Gerald Smith [MV5780] :
Another excellent evening in the company of Pete and Clive last
night in the elegant surroundings of Bath's Guildhall. Both on excellent
form for an audience of around 200. Pete left his keyboard at home this
time and made full use of the Yamaha Grand piano occupying centre stage,
changing to his trusty Gibson more or less every other song.
All the songs were taken from the six albums apart from a couple of
surprises at the end. Star of Tomorrow - which Pete had all but
forgotten about - made its first outing in 25 years, and then as an encore
- despite Pete's recent posting that no-one analyse, transcribe, perform or
otherwise make utterances about it - he played The Ties That Bind
You. We were advised to regard it as work in progress, although it had
Pete's hallmark stamped all over it. Could any other MVs present detect
overtones of YAWBMLA - especially in the first two lines of the verses?
Rounded off the evening by buying the SD/LL re-release courtesy of Waterstones,
in an adjacent room where Pete and Clive were doing a book/CD signing
session (and a tidy bit of business judging by the length of the queue!).
Set list (no break) was as follows:
Carole Birkill [MV5783] :
Just to say how wonderful Bath was. I loved the different arrangement of
The Man Who Walked Toward The Music and the whole show was just so
professional. I think it was the most relaxed that I have seen for some
time. Pete and Clive get better and better. This performance was a big
stride forward from Buxton.
Oh, and the watercolours. Well, we couldn't just let the lady artist go
home with them, for them never to see the light of day again...could we?
They will be on the web-site. Not necessarily soon, but they will get there.
Carole
From the Bath Chronicle, Wednesday March 7 2001
In search of paradox...
Wizard of Oz: Clive James enchants a packed house at Guildhall
In Concert: Clive James and Pete Atkin
The intellectual whose TV shows are the small screen equivalent of tabloid
journalism. The brilliant writer who speaks in an antipodean monotone.
The man who travels the world eulogising everywhere from Berlin to Buenos
Aires but never Britain, yet has lived here since 1961.
But let's not cavil, he's interesting and the Guildhall was crowded again
as he read poetry and essays from his previous books.
From the programme preamble I had thought that at least here came one
author without a book to sell, but before you could say Alice Springs he
got in a plug for two books to be published in July, and a further three
later in the year.
With business out of the way he had the audience rocking with an account of
orange box racing from his childhood, which, he said, sounded like "the
Battle of Britain in a bathroom".
Huge fun, and a great finish; followed by a poem about a fish.
Then on to Nuremberg and the site where "90,000 Nazis had paraded and
yelled, 150,000 in the stands yelled back and Hitler yelled even louder".
There was apparently no one there now except "a few lonely madmen scrawling
graffiti".
Clive had stood on the Hitler's podium but reckoned "the glory has not
departed, it was never really there."
Asked why he came to England he said: "Because everyone seemed to be
coming, and you could stay if you had just £10. which I did. I lost it at a
party and couldn't afford to go back for 16 years."
Auberon Waugh and Brian Sewell have recommended him for deportation and he
clearly thinks that Oz is Nirvana but he's still here "for as long as I'm
allowed to stay".
But he never said why.
Perhaps it was the real Clive James who turned up in the same room a couple
of hours later In Concert with Pete Atkin.
Certainly a more relaxed affair than earlier, Clive mostly sat on stage
listening to Pete Atkin sing songs that they'd written together after
meeting at Cambridge in the '70s.
Their revue style was still fresh and the lyrics as clever as you'd expect
from such a fluent wordsmith.
Although they recorded half a dozed albums, financial success eluded them
and, after ten years or so, both moved on.
Mr Atkin is now a TV producer, but he obviously loves performing,
accompanying himself on piano or guitar with a singing voice reminiscent of
Tom Lehrer.
Although they moved on, their fans never forgot and they recently found a
busy internet site with all their lyrics and a hardcore of fans, hence the
current reincarnation and the albums being available again, this time on CD.
The wry, moving song Beware The Beautiful Stranger stood out as perhaps the
best (it included the lovely line "I'm the one you'll need, after the one
you know now"), but there wasn't a dud in the evening.
Clive thought that originally they didn't know what category their music
fitted into. Not quite easy listening or jazz or folk, the record companies
didn't quite know where to put them.
Clive guessed they should be in the 'difficult listening' section. "I've
always thought that paranoid didn't mean they weren't after you." he said,
adding that he also thought that misery was a better base to write from
than happiness.
Wonderfully relaxed entertainment from a pair of performers totally at ease
with themselves.
Maybe this was the real Clive James.
Clive James sponsored by The Junction. In Concert: Clive James and Pete
Atkin, sponsored by Alsters & Co.
[Reproduced without permission for MV5786, errors not corrected. The 'poem about a fish'
is of course The Great Wrasse,
about Australian poet Les Murray]
(Encore) The Ties That Bind You (p)
[Watercolours by Sue Kendall of Bath]
Review by Philip Horton
Last night the Bath Literature Festival hosted the paradox that is Clive
James: The man who loves Australia above all, but hasn't lived there for 40
years.
