I went to see Billy Bragg and Paul Heaton last night at Westonbirt arboretum as part of Forest Live. What a strange experience! Beautiful place, but it was full of people you’d normally try to avoid. This is blatant inverted snobbery on my part, but everyone had chairs and picnic blankets. We had made a bit of a concession to this by taking a packet of mini Melton Mowbray pork pies, a couple of Babybels and a few tinnies, but it didn’t sit right with me. Either go for a picnic or to a gig, not both. It was weird when the bands started playing as half the folk stood up and half opened the vol-au-vents.
I love Billy Bragg, always have, and must have seen him about 20 times over the years, but something was very wrong last night. The setting probably didn’t help, but I reckon he was either very pissed or had sunstroke. In fact, I hope that is the case and nothing more serious. He was abysmal, didn’t seem to know how songs started or finished, was being prompted by his band, playing bum notes galore and his voice, while never a strong suit, was really poor. He even did a new song about the American Revolution called “No Kings” that you’d swear was written by AI on cliched BB settings. The old classics have even lost some of their raw appeal as he’s countrified and muso’ed them up beyond recognition without the musical ability to pull it off. Even his between song banter felt a bit contrived and he was obviously a bit embarrassed as he kept stating that he hadn’t played for six months and they were a bit rusty. One of the band seemed to take umbrage with this and muttered “look who’s talking”. Not good to see.
Paul Heaton came on in shorts, nice Barbour jacket and was a model professional. When someone shouted at him to take off his jacket, he quipped “I would, but we all know it wouldn’t stop there. You’re hungry for flesh now you’ve seen my knees!” He ran through plenty of Housemartins (Flag Day, Five Get Overexcited, Happy Hour, Sheep), some classic Beautiful South (Old Red Eyes is Back, I’ll Sail This Ship Alone, You Keep It All In) and some of his solo stuff (that Fish & Chip Supper song is awful) and was on top form (I particularly liked his dedication of a song to “the posh deckchair wankers”). I had previously said to a bloke and his wife who plonked down in front of me that his mobile furniture was better than anything in our house.
The problem with Westonbirt is you’re parked in fields with thousands of other cars and apparently (I knew people who had been to Snow Patrol, Elbow and Sting - not friends I must add, just acquaintances) it takes an hour and a half to get out after. Now, I’m well conditioned to tolerating 90 minutes of tedium and frustration, but decided to leave a song before the end as we felt getting home in about half an hour as opposed to over two was worth missing Caravan of Love. Anyway, finding the car was like finding a car in a forest and we only just got out in time.
The wife was surprisingly well behaved. She went to the toilet when BB launched into his customary trans rights/anti JK Rowling rant. She hates Heaton’s singing, which I’ve never understood as I think it’s great. She admitted he can hold a tune unlike Bragg, but that he has “a clerical voice, fluting and like being stuck in church”. She said Rianne Downey was good, but too young to be singing duets with a 60-odd-year-old man. Pretty tame considering she had four pints sat in the sun!