Heres the review as promised, I hope you can forgive me for my lack of
knowledge of Terry Callier's music. Anyway, monday 9th February 1998, not
the biggest party night of the week in this town by a long chalk. The
Fleece and Firkin is a small ish venue about 300 people tops. I'd expected
the venue to be about two thirds full, we'd got tickets in advance (seven
quid) juss to be sure.
We arrived, 15 minutes before the set started, to find the fleece packed to
the rafters, no room to move. Mr Callier had a Female singer from south
africa, brazillian percussionist, a fella on keyboards,
saxophonist/flautest, bass player, and a drummer packed onto the small
stage. The first set was cool, jazzy and exceptionally tight, and the sound
whilst setup perfectly wasnt loud enough to make much of an impact over the
disrespectful crowd murmer. During a folky-blues into to one song someone
standing next to me remarked it was the comercial-mix, because the cash
tils behind the bar could be heard above Terrys voice.
The long interval was allegedly filled with a DJ set by either Mr Peterson
or TinTin (a local DJ), but to be honest I wasnt impressed with the
originality of what was being played (I'm sure at one point the dj juss put
on a whole side of MAW's Nuyorican Soul album)
The second set came an hour later, some people had left, gave us a bit more
room, but still the sound wasnt penetrating the crowd. It wasnt til the
third from last song that the entire room was brought to silent awe by
voices on stage.
After two songs of an encore it was gone twelve, off we went home feelin
satisfied, "safe" smiles on everyones faces.
Overall most people I asked enjoyed themselves, and felt the first set was
better than the second. Personally, although the performance was pretty
hot, if it had been in a larger club enviroment I reckon the night would
have been storming...
Joe