boldwood

So I'm going to represent my life topsy-turvily out of order and take a break from Budapest-posting to muse about a subsequent cultural experience. Which will annoy the chronology purists (I'm looking at you, Star Wars fans).

Last night, Robby and Emily (two people from my programme) and I went down to St. Michael's church to see Boldwood. I didn't know anything about the band, but Robby told me they were some sort of folk band and that it was a cheap concert. He really couldn't have chosen better: the show was perfect for people like us in so many ways.

Boldwood plays indie dance music--except it's 17th and 18th century English and Welsh dance music. Several years ago, accordionist Becky found a whole lot of manuscript music at a London library. Most of this music has no recorded author; nearly has not been played for more than two hundred years. Well, she did what any accordionist-and-traditional-music-enthusiast would do, and she got a band together.

Now, they play as a four-piece set (though only three of them were there last night), doing what they call "brushing the dust off" of these old, never-before-heard pieces. We heard an unrecognisable version of "Greensleeves" as well as a number of fiddle-driven dance tunes. One of the tunes was collected by Thomas Hardy. Others probably had specific dances to accompany them once, though these have long been lost. Most of the manuscript tunes only existed as a couple of lines--Boldwood arranged every piece in its repertoire. Well, almost every piece: on one or two occasions, they would just start at the same time and finish at the same time, trusting themselves and their instruments to figure out the middle, which is therefore necessarily different every time.

All three members of the band were fantastic and interesting and funny, though Becky the accordionist was an absolute star. She introduced almost every piece with a depth of knowledge regarding classical and folk music that was not simple research: it was honest love for music itself and her place within it. All of them had that attitude--while playing, they smiled at each other as if they shared some secret joke, and it was clear to everyone that they were three people who would rather be where they were than anywhere else in the world. It was captivating.

And now I'm listening to their CD, which is called "Feet, Don't Fail me Now", which is, improbably, on Zune. Brilliant.