list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL MUSIC
P H O T O :
C H E L O N E W O L F
JAMIE MACDOWELL AND TOM THUM Frustrating hour from talented performers ●●●●● BLUESWATER PRESENTS: CAT LOUD Confident show from the cabaret singer ●●●●●
GONE NATIVE Songs of freedom and social justice ●●●●● ‘People come from all over the world to watch people from all over the world,’ is Kevin Gore’s explanation of how he and Bobby Nicholson came to put on Gone Native. Both Scottish Independence campaigners, these Edinburgh songwriters pin their colours to the mast from the off, but their humour and humility means it never feels hectoring.
Tom Thum, the beatboxer who’s amassed 59 million views of his TED Talk, has an incredible ability in instrumental mimicry. Two songs in, Thum is given the room to flex his muscles and it’s jaw-dropping. First running through ‘tests’, he moves on to the crackle of a 78 before delivering a flurry of beats.
In the first half of a split show, Gore blazes through The problem is that this is a break in the middle
a set of protest songs rooted in the 60s folk revival. Nicholson joins at the half-way mark for ‘Erin Go Bragh’; his clipped Edinburgh policeman character contrasting Gore’s ardent highlander.
Nicholson takes over for the second half, lulling the audience in with antics of bored youth in the laugh-out loud ‘Things to Do When Nothin’s on the Telly’ before the song slips into the post-industrial breakdown of the social contract and the excesses of the 1%. ‘Refugees’ – a re-worked version of Woodie
Guthrie’s ‘Deportee’ – is the most earnest of his set, but we’re back to trademark Nicholson with ‘Stuff Yer Licence BBC’, detailing his disdain for the BBC and ‘Panda Porn’, a cynical take on the propaganda power of the ‘over-fed, under-bred, anti-social bastards.’ An hour that flies by, Gone Native shows a much-maligned genre in its best light. (Joe McManus) ■ The Royal Oak, until 28 Aug, 6.30pm, £8 (£6).
of the otherwise pedestrian ‘Feet to Floor’, a jazzy, hip hop-influenced tune to which the pair return, but which goes nowhere. This forms the template for a frustrating hour. Too often, Thum is relegated to providing rudimentary drum machine backing to MacDowell’s Ed Sheeran-esque songwriting.
Thum’s solo turn, ‘Ratchet Face’, is the high point, using loops to progressively build a dubstep track. It’s not new territory for beatboxing, but it’s seldom done so musically; his flawless harmonies and drones preceding a thunderous crescendo.
MacDowell is a talented guitarist, showing some tasteful flamenco phrasing in their re-writing of Bill Withers’ ‘Grandma’s Hands’. Yet his material doesn’t do justice to the ability of either performer, and struggles to hold the attention. (Joe McManus) ■ Assembly George Square Studios, until 20 Aug, 8pm, £12–£14.
If you can tell how confident and comfortable a performer is by the way they handle a heckler, then it seems that cabaret singer Cat Loud – or Catriona MacLeod – was born to be on a stage. She doesn’t just strike up a rapport with the heavily tipsy young woman shouting ‘hell, yeah!’ at random intervals, she invites her onstage as one of the volunteers enlisted to aid a costume change and heckles her right back. It all fits neatly with the show’s aesthetic, which
sees Cat – mostly elegant in an evening dress and supported by Rob Harrison on electric piano – mixing sharp-tongued and comedic spoken interludes with a brand of dusky torch singing which stuns the room into silence. In both cases, her voice is clear, confident and easy to listen to, whether she’s working Nina Simone’s ‘When I Was a Young Girl’, Etta James’ ‘Spoonful’ or (highly appropriate, given her forthright stage persona) Martha Wainwright’s ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’ into her tale of an Alice in Wonderland-style trip to meet the devil, or letting loose with some wickedly forthright banter. ‘Clap whenever you want, I really fucking love it,’ she says; she deserves to hear a bigger and fuller venue doing just that. (David Pollock) ■ SpaceTriplex, until 25 Aug, 10.20pm, £9 (£8).
CELL BLOCK SOWETO: AN A CAPPELLA GANG SHOW A light-hearted musical journey into South Africa past and present ●●●●●
When the five prisoners of Cell Block Soweto enter in their orange jumpsuits, they are surrounded by the most basic of staging with a projected image of the inside of a cell setting the scene. This is inconsequential though because as the show unfolds, their light-hearted, cheeky anecdotes and buoyant songs prove that nothing else is required. The South African a capella show by After Freedom
uses incarceration as a theme to interweave a number of songs with stories about escape, captivity and ill- fated love. Their opening medley of numbers, which includes
Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’, and Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’, is unexpected in its make-up but their stunning vocal harmonies mesh perfectly together, creating versions that are lush and original. Along with pop songs, they sing African tunes, adding energetic and perfectly in-sync step dancing routines to mimic instruments.
A cappella can certainly be a hit or miss affair but
here at Ghillie Dhu, Cell Block Soweto is proving to be an exception to this. The five performers deliver a show that is simple in its premise but executed with great flair, boundless energy and a sense of musical synergy, ultimately facilitating an uplifting experience that is truly good for the soul. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Ghillie Dhu, until 23 Aug (not 18, 19, 20), 7.30pm (3.45pm on 23), £12 (£10). Bar Bados, 20, 25-27 Aug, 2pm, £12 (£10).
17–28 Aug 2017 THE LIST FESTIVAL 73