John Bramwell And The Full Harmonic Convergence / Dave Fidler - London Hackney Earth - 15th November 2024

John Bramwell And The Full Harmonic Convergence opened their UK tour in support of this year's The Light Fantastic album at Earth Theatre in Hackney, London on Friday night. Over the course of a mammoth twenty-five song set they performed the album in full as well as tracks from John's solo debut and his I Am Kloot back catalogue to an attentive and appreciative audience.

One of the Full Harmonic Convergence, Dave Fidler, opens the night with a nine-song set of tracks taken from his two solo albums as well as a number of impressive unreleased tracks that he's been working on since his second album Songs From Aurora which was released as lockdown hit.  His most recent single All The While opens the set and is followed by two new songs which weren't as familiar to John's audience that have seen Dave play with John and form a strong bond of friendship as well as creativity over the past decade. There's two songs from his debut I'm Not Here - both about his now teenage children, A Song For Nico about his daughter's difficult birth and Easy Gone Easy Come which finishes the set about his son Dylan in whose style Dave wrote the song. The bulk of the middle of the set though comes from Songs From Aurora and demonstrate both Dave's songwriting craft and ability to create songs that connect with the listener and deliver them with warmth and vulnerability.

After a short break John and The Full Harmonic Convergence - Dave Fidler on guitar, Harriet Bradshaw on cello, Alan Lowles on keys and guitar and Andy Fidler on cajon - take us on a journey for over two and a quarter hours through the album they've recorded together over the past few years and finally released earlier this year. With the addition of songs from John's first solo album Leave Alone The Empty Spaces, John is bucking the trend of many ex-frontmen of popular bands by not relying on the back catalogue to impress. Only nine of the twenty-five songs are I Am Kloot and they're mostly bundled together near the end of the night including the traditional closing duo of Northern Skies and Proof where the crowd politely let go of their attention and sing along where appropriate. 

The Full Harmonic Convergence songs make full use of the five of them and it feels like a band of brothers and sisters rather than a frontman with a backing band. Harriet's cello and Alan's keyboards add depth and detail to the likes of World Full Of Flowers, Sky Full Of Thunder And Lightning and I Am The Sky. The venue's beautiful acoustics, save for the amplification of the ice machine at the bar which John politely but firmly asks to stop, enhance the richness of these songs and the emotional warmth and lived-in honesty of John's voice. The seated crowd respond by listening attentively, save for the usual nipping off to the bar and toilets. When the I Am Kloot songs come they're not treated with any greater reverence than the more recent ones that precede them. The cello in particular changes them, enhancing the emotional depth of them. The Same Deep Water As Me and a revisited Because are particularly impacted by this allowing John's voice to be softer and deepening the connection that the audience can make with them.

It wouldn't of course be a John Bramwell gig without the humour - whether it be the same lines that never fail to make the audience laugh or the more spontaneous moments where something pops into John's head and he says it before thinking and then laughs himself as he finishes the sentence. The stories told a hundred times never cease to be funny, to both us and him, and add to the warmth of the night. There's little interactions with the audience and a real camaraderie between the five of them, joking about their rehearsals for the tour in an old lady's bungalow in Chinley rather than a studio as well as John's propensity to knock things over on stage and time taken to tune guitars. 

It is though about the music first though. Songs written twenty-five years ago blend seamlessly with all twelve tracks from The Light Fantastic, including the gorgeous harmonies of its final song Illegalised and the mostly spoken-word Nobody Left But You which was born at a pre-gig jam, both of which demonstrate John's desire to not just write songs the same way as he always has. Those vocal harmonies enhance the likes of Days Go By, World Full Of Flowers, Element Of Truth and It's Just You and make The Light Fantastic stand tall against John's esteemed back catalogue with I Am Kloot.  

John Bramwell And The Full Harmonic Convergence played World Full Of Flowers, It's Just You, Element Of Truth, Leave No Traces, Time's Arrow, Sky Full Of Thunder And Lightning, I Am The Sky, Who Is Anybody Anyway, Nobody Left But You, 86 TVs, Here It Comes, From Your Favourite Sky, Gods And Monsters, Because, Days Go By, The Same Deep Water As Me, To The Brink, I Feel Me, Illegalised, Sat Beneath The Lightning Tree, Meet Me At The Station, No Fear Of Falling, When The Lights Go Out, Northern Skies and Proof. 

John Bramwell's website can be found here.  He is also on Twitter and Facebook.

John Bramwell And The Full Harmonic Convergence Tour at Sheffield Foundry (November 23), York Crescent (24) and Manchester New Century (27). John's solo dates are all available to view here.

The Light Fantastic can be ordered here.

Dave Fidler's website can be found here.  He is also on Twitter and Facebook.

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