Beating a path to the stage through a forest of trichological marvels, taking care not to stumble over the crossed-legged communes scattered about the room, it was great to walk into a pre-gig atmosphere sparking with genuine excitement for the music, rather than smug pretension that everyone’s present at the arrival of the next, next-big thing.
 | | The Seth Lakeman Trio |
Seth Lakeman was first up, taking to the stage with his literal band of brothers and their collection of guitar, tenor guitar, fiddle, cajon, bodhran and meaty double bass. Nominated for this year’s Mercury award, yet still markedly unassuming and charming they put together a really proficient, crowd pleasing set of straight down the line trad tunes. The man himself is a prodigious talent on the folk fiddle and the manual and mental dexterity displayed on solo spot Kitty Jay, playing and singing simultaneously, was really impressive. The band also managed to nail another key ingredient of a successful folk gig and that was to make sure they included a couple of hoedown numbers to counteract the plaintive ‘my girlfriend’s fallen in the water trough’ plodders. The thing that makes Seth Lakeman stand out is that their image isn’t one that you’d normally associate with folk. This’ll be hard, but try to imagine Daniel Bedingfield with the gene removed that makes you want to inflict untold pain and suffering on him, and you sort of get Seth Lakeman. He’s a nicely turned out, clean cut, polite, talented young bloke who unashamedly rejoices in making the music he loves. Amidst the sea of battered long-sleeved black and yellow Levellers t-shirts with the odd Glastonbury 94 tee thrown in for good measure, I felt like a bit of a fraud. For about five months when I was fourteen, I submerged myself in everything Levellers, even down to painstakingly painting their symbol onto the back of my DMs, in a vain attempt to ensnare a guy in year the above who was a proper fan. Suffice to say it didn’t work and the cassettes have slowly been disintegrating amongst the pile of discarded copies of Just-17 and vandalised boots ever since. However, nostalgia’s a powerful thing and as the chords of England, My Home burst through George W’s tannoy preamble, I was instantaneously transported back to the emotional quagmire of my youth. With the hackles of the Whalley Range honk-for-peace section of the crowd uproariously raised, the band ploughed on into a mammoth nineteen song set which took in all the classics, Belarus, The Road, Carry Me, as well as their self-deprecatingly futile bid for Christmas No.1, Last Man Alive. At risk of sounding like Scrappy-Doo, they really sock it to you. The boundless energy of bassist and fiddler, coupled with the rough diamond cragginess of frontman Mark Chadwick brings forth a raucous on-stage party that takes a hallucinogenically surreal turn with the arrival of a UV-painted feather boa-clad, didgeridoo playing clown for the encore of One Way. At a time when new bands are delving into bygone ages in search of something neoteric, it was interesting to be hurled back into the 90s, not by virtue of synth-fuelled pastiches, but by songs that weren’t ever that ‘now’ then but still stand alone as great tracks. Politically charged folk rock isn’t a genre that rises or falls on the strength of image, celebrity pal endorsement or NME tour billing. The Levellers are still here because they’re loyal to their principles, their music and their fans; granted your ticket stub mightn’t rack up too many points on the cool wall, but I’ve never seen an audience left so sated. | 
