Teh Tull!
The change is audiences was interesting. Yesterday it was pretty much “Moseley on holiday” albeit the 30+ middle class Guardian reading muesli sandal bit of Moseley. Today there was a rather significant headliner and in response there was a rather significant shift in beard style and the occasional leather jacket. I even saw an Iron Maiden t-shirt. We were heading towards that part of the music venn diagram where Folk and Heavy Rock overlap.
But first there was the rest of the third and final day of the Moseley Folk Festival to enjoy and again my reviewing chops are somewhat blunted by my not really paying too much attention, but I caught the end of Jim Moray’s set which was pretty neat and Cara Dillon provided the perfect soundtrack to lying on a blanket, and I mean that as a complement. By sheer fluke I found myself sitting right at the front for Ade Edmondson’s Bad Shepherds punk-songs-in-a-folk-style and enjoyed it immensely, on the one hand ramming home the point that punk and folk are intrinsically related, while on the other having a lot of fun with the material. And it was lovely to see Birmingham’s other Balkan gypsy outfit Mama Matrix as the penultimate act, perfectly bringing the crowd to life after a lazy day in time for the main event.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Jethro Tull. They’ve always just been on the periphery of my awareness, sometimes in a reverential way, sometimes in a piss-taking way, but I couldn’t have told you what they were like. When they started Jez said to me “what are they doing here?” which I spectacularly misinterpreted as a comment on the relatively heavy rock sounds coming from the stage not being particularly “folk” and replied that Hayseed Dixie had played the first MFF in 2006. But what Jez meant was that the band he’d loved since the age of 13 were playing in the park at the bottom of his road where he walks his dogs. I’m still not sure whether I enjoyed The Tull more because I was feeding off Jez’s having a moment or if they were just fab, but enjoy them I did. Even the bits I probably wouldn’t have liked on record thanks to Ian Anderson’s stage antics and irreverent introductions to the songs. It was top quality music (always a risk with 40 year old bands) and it was great fun to watch. A perfect end to a rather nice weekend.
Well done Moseley Folk folk. Same again next year please.
Now to shave off this beard…