With December closing in we braved rail-replacement buses to join the remarkable Vashti Bunyan (with support from Jim Ghedi & Toby Hay) for a one-off date at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on a Monday night.
In September we caught up with Ghedi & Hay and offered our two cents on their accomplished collaborative release The Hawksworth Grove Sessions. As previously touched upon, the landscape of the pairing’s respective hometowns and their ever-changing environment on tour seem to heavily feed into the essence of the music they create together. Recently they’ve also been paying close attention to how a venue can influence a performance. “Everyone’s so quiet,” remarks Hay comparing this evening’s show to most gigs. We must say it does sound pretty far removed from one of their past Saturday night dates at a brewery in Glasgow.
With Ghedi & Hay’s masterful interplay receiving the respect it deserves they begin their set with standout Goat Fell. Heads downcast, only rising for the occasional nod when entering a new section, their playing is symbiotic and sensitive. Each is acutely aware of the other, Ghedi allowing Hay space for flourishes that evoke Robbie Basho’s sparkling Visions of the Country and the rising Grand Teton Mountain range depicted on it’s LP cover. Notes catch and cascade like embers carried in the wintry air.
They close with an improvised piece that has come together on tour. Hay warns the audience “I’m playing in a different time signature to Jim – so if it seems like I’m going out of time, I’m not – It’s very clever and very hard” he quips before launching his assault, 12-strings ringing with that lush expansiveness Tim Buckley chased, whilst Ghedi exquisitely weaves his way in-between. Twenty-seven gigs in since mid-October they will soon be enjoying a well-deserved break. Up until this point I’d only been lucky enough to catch solo performances but I would suggest when the road calls them back (and I have no doubt it will soon) be sure to catch these two live. Well received by their audience, the duo conjures up the perfect countryside idyll for Vashti to unhitch the wagon and roll on through.
Vashti, accompanied by Gareth Dickson, comes on softly spoken, insightful and irrefutably honest. She is exactly like you might imagine her to be, discussing her vices as if you were sat across the kitchen table from one another. They begin with the slow-drawn Here Before and ease their way into the spring-breeze meditation of Diamond Day. “I was there on the road, with a horse, a cart, a dog and a boyfriend on the outreaches of Northern Britain. I wanted a simpler life. I wrote this song because I thought life could be simpler. I don’t believe it anymore”
Maybe he didn’t mean to say it out loud but the chap next to me in a long leather overcoat exclaims to everyone and no one in particular “It’s just like yesterday, takes you back to when you first saw her.” The song yearns with a heavy nostalgia for a past forgotten. One that perhaps never really existed or a time we are still all holding out hope for. The purity is still so present in her voice and imagery, with Gareth quietly plying out lead melody lines on six strings with the crisp clarity of a harpist.
After a stunning rendition of Across The Water, If I Were details the difficulties of her daughter’s past love affair before she returns once more to ‘63 with Train Song. At the time she explains she was warned by record execs of how uncommercial the tune was, since then however she triumphantly recalls it has soundtracked several adverts over the years. Vashti rightfully claims the last laugh and sings in a wistful whisper, she then allows Dickson to take the lead on his beautifully restrained Two Trains. His voice brings to mind a tempered Alexi Murdoch and it is obvious why Vashti has chosen this fair-weather friend to accompany her.
I’d Like To Walk Around In Your Mind, another lovelorn two-minute gem idles by, then Vashti adjusts her lyrics choosing to close with the haunting, stream-of-consciousness stylings of Heartleap. Each melody throughout the evening is so finely spun and fragile; the audience silent, take extreme care not to make any sudden movements out of fear of breaking the spell. The room just watches on in quiet reverence and just like that it is time for Vashti to take her leave, and all our daydreams sleepily dissipate before our eyes.