BFR at The Plasterers presents Takeda, Don’t Lose Heart, Phoebe Robinson. Birds of Hell at OST, Cinema City, Norwich 10 March 2015

Tuesday’s Bare Feet Records night at the Plasterers featured a fine line up of subtle and delicate artists, all sounding beautiful though some of the subtlety was sadly lost during some of the noisier pub moments but such is the nature of pub gigs. I do love the Plasterers though, one of my favourite Norwich pubs, friendly and welcoming with great beers and live music too, everything a pub should be.

Don’t Lose Heart, at The Plasterers
(c) shashamane

Phoebe Robinson opened the evening with her lovely and expressive voice and the hauntingly delicate and fragile nature of her songs. A fine vocal and songwriting talent coming to prominence in the city, I’ve seen her several times and always enjoy hearing her sing.

Phoebe Robinson
(c) shashamane

Phoebe Robinson
(c) shashamane

I was looking forward to catching a full set from Don’t Lose Heart, two very accomplished musicians (Lou and Dickie) with a fine repertoire of interesting, enjoyable and thoughtful melodic songs. Lou made a couple of jokes about her description of being a “prolific songwriter” but she demonstrated just why with two or three new songs one of which was composed for a Norfolk Blues Society challenge, and these were some of the strongest moments in the set for me. Four or so songs particularly stood out, I can’t recall all the titles but Little Black Dress, and Just the Singer were two of them and were rich in fine lyrics and the immediacy of the chord changes on hearing them for the first time. They play again on Friday at Jurnets, I am looking forward to hearing them there in a setting that should suit them very well.

Don’t Lose Heart
(c) shashamane

Don’t Lose Heart
(c) shashamane

Don’t Lose Heart
(c) shashamane

Takeda is a hugely gifted guitarist, his work very subtle and soft at times, though he probably suffered the most for being somewhat drowned out by ambient pub hubub as a large group came in but it was still possible to appreciate his work and there were clearly people listening very intently.

Takeda
(c) shashamane

At the end of the sets here I dashed over to Cinema City to try and catch Birds of Hell at OST, happily arriving in good time. I always enjoy hearing Birds of Hell play, his songs can be intense, even funny but always totally engaging. Boa Constrictor sounded massive and ominously dark and we also had the trademark songs of family plus a wonderful new kids song about trying to catch up in age to a brother a year older. A very wordy, poetic and clever piece performed for the first time tonight. A real treat to hear so much great music on a Tuesday evening in the city.

Birds of Hell
(c) shashamane

words and photos, richard shashamane 2015

@RShashamane

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