The critically renowned folk rock band ColvinQuarmby returned to Lichfield Guildhall to play to their loyal local audience.
As well as folk music, the set also included elements of a more melodic rock orientated approach traces of blues and jazz, particularly in the evocative lead guitar parts.
The concert started with the Cajun-flavoured Alcohol and Me, before the stately, Pink Floyd-like A Broken Man was played, featuring delicate drumming, and a slow ballad ambience.
The Poacher and the Highwayman was a classy folk song, featuring a haunting violin part, while The God’s Don’t Work was a political protest song examining religious fervour. The House of the Setting Sun was a slow song, which looked at the stigma that is attached to certain groups within society, and set closer Our Own Personal Not OK Corral was a relationship song that used images from the Wild west.
The second half continued in a similar vein, with The Ocean and Giants looking at personal relationships, while the sing-along Dylan Thomas’s Pen was a mid paced folk song, full of lyrical and melodic invention.
Just a Bone in a Dinosaur’ was a song of existential angst, that was married to a beat, mandolin part, and chord progression that sounded like REM during their commercial peak.
An encore of Watching Feather’s Fall was a slow ballad that featured touching five-part harmony singing and delicate instrumental support to create an ideal finish to this concert which had managed to pack pathos, humour, and high quality musicianship into one evening.
