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Review: Oysterband / June Tabor, Bristol Beacon – ‘A hell of a goodbye”
After 45 years of touring, folk-rockers Oysterband have decided that the time is right to retire. They are, of course, taking a long, long time to say goodbye with a huge tour that spills well into 2025 – and they’re bringing along a special guest too.
The three albums that they have made with June Tabor are absolute cult classics, Tabor adding her depth, her gravitas, her subtleties to a band always best experienced live.
And so it is this evening, on a night of saying goodbye to Oysterband, June Tabor steals the show.
is needed now More than ever
As soon as she steps, haltingly, on to the stage, Tabor is the focal point. On Mississippi Summer the harsh, dust choked fields are evoked with ease, Tabor exuding desperation and defiance as Ian Telfer’s fiddle flickers around her.
That fiddle seems to course through Tabor, sending jolts of energy into her frame: she grows as it plays, becoming an utterly commanding presence. It is, as she says, “one hell of a song”.
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There are times when she spits out lyrics, unable to contain the fury that seethes within. On Bonny Bunch of Roses, taken from the classic album Ragged Kingdom, there’s disdain and an almost unspeakable power to her.
She may not move much but when you have a voice that can convey love and hate, joy and dismay in the way that she can, who cares? All the while Oysterband creates a huge storm around her, Sean Randle’s drums the prelude to a deluge.
It speaks volumes that, on their own farewell tour, there are moments when Oysterband leave Tabor on stage to sing solo. Les Baker’s Roseville Fair is entirely unaccompanied, darkly humorous and show-stopping, the story delivered with a wink and a sly grin. Hills of Shiloh, simply performed with Alan Prosser’s acoustic guitar, is heartbreaking, a remembrance of war soaked in emotion.
The incomparable June Tabor – photo: Matt Condon
Perhaps, though, it is when everyone is on stage that the power of these seven brilliant musicians is felt most strongly. Susie Clelland sees the boys in the band massing around Tabor, their voices buoying her up along with some foot-tapping folk-rock.
Trad favourite, John Barleycorn, is muscular, driven by Telfer’s fluid fiddle. Sweet Sixteen is a capella, seven voices swelling, warming, enveloping. It is glorious.
There are contemporary(ish) cover versions too. All Tomorrow’s Parties sees fiddle and cello buzzing and thrumming around Tabor’s skeletal take on the Velvet’s classic. An encore of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit is suitably psychedelic, as forgotten words fall down a swirling rabbit-hole.
It’s Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart that is nothing short of remarkable though. In the hands of June Tabor and Oysterband’s singer, John Jones, it becomes the ultimate lovegonewrong song. It’s even more creepy, even darker, even more restrained than the original and all the better for it.
Tabor, occasionally, takes a break and when she does Oysterband are left to say goodbye in their own way. Where the World Divides, River Runs and Roll Away are wonderfully solid folk stompers, choral harmonies and a beautiful interplay between fiddle and cello effortlessly inspiring grins and handclaps.
Jones’ voice is strong, only wavering when, every now and again, the emotions of farewell get too much. For All That Way For This, the six range across the stage, shuffling drums and mandolin showing that Oysterband are capable of fun as well as heart-string tugging.
By the time Put Out the Lights rolls ‘round there are people in the packed Beacon with tears streaming down their faces. Not only will this be the last time we get to see Oysterband on a Bristol stage but, between Jones and Tabor, every emotion has been comprehensively wrung from every person in the place.
It was a hell of a way to say goodbye.
Main image: Gavin McNamara
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