A couple of years ago I was present at the first rendition of these concerts – at the Barbican – and experienced a truly magical night. Not least because Nick Drake’s original mentor and producer was the man behind this and treated it with the taste it deserved.
Nick Drake was NOT about depression and melancholy; he may well have been depressive and melancholic but his songs are about the world about him and exploring the images that he found wherever he went. It is music of beauty and works at its best when it is not being treated as something untouchable and delicate.
The tracks on this album feature some very different artists – from Green Gartside to Luluc and Krystle Warren as well as Vashti Bunyan and Teddy Thompson and Danny Thompson – and the songs are presented brilliantly, exploring new elements of the songs and giving the listener new insights into Nick Drake’s music. The backing musicians are superb – full string section as well as musical accompaniment – and the songs just sing to the listener.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to experience Nick Drake live – very few were – but I was a fan ‘back in the day’ and the recent resurgence in interest is well overdue. He produced a surprisingly large amount of music in a short time and never saw the success – we can only enjoy him through concerts like these but they do him justice at last.
Standout numbers here are many: Shane Nicholson’s ‘Poor Boy’, Krystle Warren delivering a wonderful ‘Time Has Told Me’, Danny Thomp[son and Zoe Rahman giving a beautiful instrumental interpretation of ‘One Of These Things First’ or a magnificent ‘River Man’ featuring Teddy Thompson but there isn’t a duff track and overall it is a wonderful experience, moreso because I can go back to the originals and compare and hear just how well this has interpreted the music of a lost giant.
