posted 09-06-2004 08:37 AM               

I saw Kate and John last night at Solfest, but I'm still not quite sure how to answer your question. He was amazing, of course, playing mandolin, violin and whistle, and not just incredibly well, but in a way that added so much colour and texture to Kate's voice and guitar work, and never distracted. In that sense, I'd say he's very musical.

On the other hand, if you're wondering about the musicality of John's physical person, I'd say he's about as musical as any other 30 year-old male. Like the rest of us, and depending on diet and other physiological processes, he'll tend to make a wider range of musical noises as he gets older.

posted 09-07-2004 03:10 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Cams:
I saw the chunk of the Leeds concert that was broadcast on BBC 4 some time ago and WILL buy the DVD SOON.

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posted 09-07-2004 07:23 AM               

Most of the bands were very good, and I can't think of even a single clinker. Some were fairly young or inexperienced and needed a bit of polish on their stage presence (Kate made that readily apparent, as she immediately had the entire audience eating out of her hand like the wildish small furry mammals we were by Sunday night), but everyone was very good musically.

The weather cooperated fairly well, although Friday night was VERY windy and rainy. Saturday and Sunday were beautiful, though, so that helped a lot.

Just one question. We camped in a field, and everything (our tent, our clothes, our sleeping bags, our food, our car, our port-a-loo, our loudly-talking-at-5:00-in-the-blessed-a.m. -next-door-neighbors, etc) was just about covered in these tiny spider-looking things. These little guys were absolutely everywhere, and I'm sure even in some places that weren't anywhere.

What the heck are these? I should tell you that I loudly informed my kids that these were deadly toxic highly venomous black death plague creatures banished to Cumbria during the late 14th century and thus ravenously hungry, so that was loads of fun actually.

posted 09-09-2004 05:48 AM               

Sorry, just couldn't resist. Kate said she just did a Canadian and American tour last year, but it sounds like from what Scott said that that one will be her last for a while. That's definitely a bummer. Check out the DVD, though, because it's a pretty close substitute, and it's great fun to watch all the other talented musicians in the band on that as well.

On the other hand, seeing Kate live (we stood about 10 feet away, with nobody in front of us) with just John playing a supporting role was truly special. As I said earlier, most other bands came and played the festival and the fans mostly sat about 50-100 feet away from the stage, up on this hillside where it was more comfortable. As soon as Kate took the stage she said, "My, you're awfully far away" and within a few seconds everyone was right next to the stage. She just has this magnetism that draws people into her personality and into her music as well, and when she starts playing, you're just lost in all of that.

It's this amazing combination of the gorgeously warm sound she gets from her guitar in that tuning, her rich and complex voice, the songs that she has chosen to play, and then all of that wrapped up together and presented in this huge persona that she brings to the stage. She's also very cute and charming, and that brings a lot of people to her initially, but then the other things are what really hold people there.

I think what impresses me most is that she opens all this stuff up and makes it available to everyone, but it's not some kind of act or show on her part. She's clearly just a genuinely nice person, who seems a little shy off the stage.

After the encore, my daughter who is 8 went up and handed her this fancy balloon hat thing that a circus guy from the festival had made for her. That was completely on her own initiative, and just shows how people react to Kate in general. We then went and hung around outside this fence that was about 30 feet from where the performer's tent was located, and we were the only 4 people standing there, in the dark and completely oustide the stage area. When Kate walked by, we were planning to yell her name, but as soon as she saw our vague outlines in the dark she immediately came over and said hi. It was like, "Oh, wow. People want to talk to me." This, after the experience of having 500 to 1000 people practically worshipping her on stage.

Amazing.