Tim Burgess joined forces with Helen O'Hara and The RNCM Session Orchestra for a couple of special evenings in the RNCM's main theatre on Friday and Saturday. Performing tracks from Tim's career with The Charlatans and his solo projects as well as a couple from Helen's time with Dexy's Midnight Runners, the RNCM Session Orchestra reinvented and reinvigorated old favourites and shed new light on Tim's solo work.
Orchestral performances seem to be the vogue thing for rock musicians these days and they generally go one of two ways. The first is that the orchestra are basically dropped on top of the band performing their biggest hits with little thought and effort in integrating the sound, but the second, and far more rewarding, is when the arrangers are given free reign to work their magic, choose songs that work, strip them down and rebuild them with the focus on the orchestra and what they can bring. This performance very much sits at the peak of the latter, a selection of songs from The Charlatans and Tim's solo albums completely reimagined for an orchestra that exuded so much joy, particularly the percussionists and cellists at the back of the stage, from being given the opportunity to fuse their art with that of others. With the addition of four wonderful vocalists who give the songs lift, take them off in different directions, and in the case of Try Again Today, when Tim and Helen leave the stage, take the lead.
There's plenty for the casual The Charlatans fan to get their teeth into. The Only One I Know is transformed into a big orchestral singalong to finish the first half of the evening and their big singles - North Country Boy, Then, A Man Needs To Be Told, One To Another, Impossible (with a guest appearance from The Verve and The Charlatans' Pete Salisbury on drums) and Weirdo - are all twisted and turned by sensitive arrangements without losing the essence of them as great songs. There's no Sproston Green to finish the night off though to the disappointment of some, but those muttering about that probably missed part of the point of the night.
The real magic though is in Tim's solo work that makes much more sense in these surroundings than it does in more traditional contexts perhaps because of those aforementioned expectations. With him on acoustic guitar and Helen providing the lead strings to the glorious backing of the RNCM orchestra with subtle brass and uplifting percussion and the excellent pair of guitarists and the bassist giving the songs a harder edge where needed, songs like Here Comes The Weekend, Yours To Be, White and the finale of The Centre Of Me burst into glorious life. The highlight of them is Curiosity, where the four vocalists from the orchestra, give the repetitive chorus a huge lift as they duel with Tim.
There's nods to Helen's work as part of Dexy's Midnight Runners. Because Of You and Let's Get This Straight From The Start as well as a raucous Come On Eileen that gets the whole of the theatre up on their feet becoming a huge singalong. The brilliance of the orchestra, led by Andy Stott, means that it avoids becoming a cheesy sideshow to the rest of the evening though.
The two hours go by in the blink of an eye. The skilful arrangements, Tim's stage presence, the well thought-out setlist and above all the wonderful way in which the orchestra was embedded into the DNA of each and every song meant that the audience's attention never wandered throughout. It felt a privilege to witness a performance that you could sense everyone on stage was enjoying as much as the audience.
Tim Burgess is on Facebook and Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment