A musical week with Natalie Merchant & Eric Bibb
Posted by: Foot tapper on 28 May 2010
After spending too long ignoring live music, our new year's resolution has been to see more of our favourite artists live.
Concerts 3 and 4 of this year both happened in the last week. The first was seeing Natalie Merchant at the Hammersmith Apollo last Saturday, followed by Eric Bibb at the Stables in Milton Keynes on Tuesday evening, supported by the lovely Megan Henwood.
Natalie Merchant played an hour and a half of songs from her new album "Leave Your Sleep", followed by another hour of songs from her previous albums. The new album is brilliantly clever and very intimate, but the highlight for us was the older work. She really does have a stunning voice, which combined with exceptional song writing skills, makes for an incredibly good evening's music.
So, one excellent concert and another one to go....
Eric Bibb played at the Stables in Milton Keynes. Our first visit to this small (circa 350 seat), intimate and rather nice venue. Megan Henwood played warm up act, and rather good she was too. Megan won a 2009 BBC Young Folk award and deservedly so. Her debut album comes out in the summer and I will be buying a copy.
Poor old Eric had a corker of a cold - runny nose, tickly cough, the lot. Still, he persevered and his guitar playing was as razor sharp as ever. With his gentle charm, wit and humour, he soon had the audience on his side, joining in with several of his classic songs.
So all in all, an excellent week for music, with more to follow in the summer.
Concerts 3 and 4 of this year both happened in the last week. The first was seeing Natalie Merchant at the Hammersmith Apollo last Saturday, followed by Eric Bibb at the Stables in Milton Keynes on Tuesday evening, supported by the lovely Megan Henwood.
Natalie Merchant played an hour and a half of songs from her new album "Leave Your Sleep", followed by another hour of songs from her previous albums. The new album is brilliantly clever and very intimate, but the highlight for us was the older work. She really does have a stunning voice, which combined with exceptional song writing skills, makes for an incredibly good evening's music.
So, one excellent concert and another one to go....
Eric Bibb played at the Stables in Milton Keynes. Our first visit to this small (circa 350 seat), intimate and rather nice venue. Megan Henwood played warm up act, and rather good she was too. Megan won a 2009 BBC Young Folk award and deservedly so. Her debut album comes out in the summer and I will be buying a copy.
Poor old Eric had a corker of a cold - runny nose, tickly cough, the lot. Still, he persevered and his guitar playing was as razor sharp as ever. With his gentle charm, wit and humour, he soon had the audience on his side, joining in with several of his classic songs.
So all in all, an excellent week for music, with more to follow in the summer.