This is a new band who I have never seen before. Indeed, I had never heard of them until Chris suggested them to me, comparing their music with that of Fairport Convention. Intrigued I decided to go along and find out myself. Chris and Elaine both accompanied me to the concert.
The Fire Station website explained this about the band: “The Magpie Arc is a cross-Border band out of Sheffield and Scotland featuring the multi-award-winning talents and wide musical influences of Nancy Kerr, Findlay Napier, Tom Wright, Alex Hunter and Martin Simpson (on electric guitar!).”
I have heard of Martin Simpson and Nancy Kerr but I have never seen them before. 1 of my friends, who loves acoustic guitar music, tells me that Martin Simpson is an excellent guitarist. So that further intrigues me and led me to attend the performance.
The Fire Station website continues: “Formed from the idea of bringing together a group of established folk musicians who would mix their song-writing styles and musicianship in a full-on electric band to create exciting new music and update the classic 60’s and 70’s British folk/rock sound, the possibilities of The Magpie Arc being something special and unique on today’s folk scene became obvious very quickly. Having three strong writers the focus has naturally been on new material, however they’ve also tackled some great covers plus their own re-workings of traditional songs. There’s folk and rock, some country and even blues, but whatever the genre the band are already proving to be a musical mix of everything you could expect from such a line-up, with excellent songs, lush harmonies, powerful electric guitars, gorgeous fiddle lines and rock solid bass and drums.”
The concert was excellent with a mixture of traditional folk songs song performed by individuals and others by the entire band. Martin Simpson is an excellent electric guitarist, Findlay Napier provided some great songs, several with a country influence and Nancy Kerr sang lovely traditional folk music accompanying herself on violin.
They reminded me of a much more electrified version of Fairport Convention. I once saw Fairport Convention in the early 70s and at the time they were very loud and electric. This was the sort of music that The Magpie Arc reminded me of as characterised by the quotes below:
“Folk/rock with Led Zeppelin vibes” (Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2)
“Just the right amount of Black Sabbath for folk/rock” (Rockslam Podcast)
Many thanks to Chris and Elaine for the photographs. I also purchased an album which Martin and Findlay kindly signed (see image)
Set List was something like this: Wassail, All I Planted; The Cutty Wren; Pans of Biscuits, Jack Frost, The Gay Goshawk; I Ain’t Going Nowhere, Long Gone; Tough as Teddy Gardner, Don’t Leave the Door Open.
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