Nick
Drake Tribute at "Les Cousins"
November
2004
People
talking loudly while he was on stage was a big problem for the late
Nick Drake,
and one of the main reasons for his having played so few
concerts
during his brief but influential career. So it was probably just as well
that he
couldn't be around for Thursday night's Nick Drake Tribute at the
revived Les
Cousins folk club in Soho.
For the
first two hours of a bill that featured new singer-songwriters
earnestly
strumming their own stuff. and a band. Things Behind the Sun,
who played
songs from each of Drake's three albums, most of the audience
were busy
paying tribute to another stimulating legacy - the conversation-
enhancing
power of alcohol.
As the
four-piece band nervously picked their way through tricksy
numbers such
as River Man from Drake's debut, Five Leaves Left, a
couple next
to me noisily discussed forest preservation in Thailand.
Elsewhere
the midweek wine-bar crowd mulled over the day's meetings
and took
pictures of each other with their mobiles.
It was left
to a dozen or so raptly attentive diehards at the front to
remind the
other hundred or so punters why they had been charged
£10 at
the club's door. As well as marking the 30th anniversary of
Drake's
suicide, the programme heralded the return - spread across
two floors
now, rather than huddled in the basement - of one of London's
leading folk
venues of the late '60s. Along with the Troubadour in Earl's
Court and
Bunjie's at nearby Leicester Square, Les Cousins
hosted
intimate shows by folk heroes such as Martin Carthy, John
enboum and
Bert Jansch.
None of the
solo acts at Thursday's event could hold a plectrum to any of
those
originals. But Behind the Sun did a fine job at rendering songs Drake
himself was
too shy and underfunded to perform properly while he was alive.
Mark Pavey's
vocal captured the velvety textures of Drake's voice, while
Peter
Michaels had carefully memorised all of Drake's guitar
tunings as
well as improvising some jazzy pianistic flourishes of his own.
The high
point of the night was the selection from the upbeat second
album,
Bryter Layter, with Poor Boy swinging for England and Hazeyfane
contradicting
the notion of Drake as a terminal depressive. Best of all, by this
point in an
up-and-down night, most of the chatterers had finished their
drinks and left.
©Daily Telegraph
The
Three Best Folk Clubs in the World-Ever 2004