Richard Thompson
Bristol Beacon
26th May 2024
Guitar legend Richard Thompson picks in style at the Bristol Beacon. Elfyn Griffith savours it.
It’s a family affair. Richard Thompson, UK folk royalty, one of the most revered guitarists in music, is on stage with his wife, US singer Zara Phillips, and his grandson Zac Hobbs on second guitar. Family groupings are nothing new to Thompson of course, as he and his wife Linda were a folk tour-de-force after Thompson left UK folk-rock giants Fairport Convention in 1971.
Thompson does well in groups, duos or solo, but seems to carry more power on his own at times. Tonight, with all respect to his band which includes former Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks and his usual bassist Troy Prodannuk, there are times when the focus drifts a little in a couple of numbers, with Thompson’s masterful and innovative guitar playing the main thing pulling it back together.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a good concert with plenty of great songs from a supremely gifted singer-songwriter. But the absolute standout moment is midway through the set when the band departs and Thompson does a stunning solo rendition of Beeswing, which he wrote thirty years ago, his deep, lilting vocal and the emotive 12-string acoustic chords (a subtle highland fling of the heart) immensely powerful and moving.
Wearing his trademark starred black beret and donning a red Stratocaster, Thompson mines his rich back catalogue, starting the night with a track from latest album Ship To Shore (released this week), the intricate folk rock of Freeze, his guitar bewitching from the outset. This is the first of a handful from the album tonight, including the storytelling quirkiness of The Old Pack Mule, the brooding Singapore Sadie, and The Day that I Give In. While Hard On Me’s overlong jam-out deflects a tad from its folk-rock/country clout, the sparse melancholic beauty of the Richard & Linda Thompson song Withered and Died hits the spot.
Thompson has always had a unique sound which imbues every one of his numbers, deploying a style of playing bass notes and rhythms with a pick between his first finger and thumb, adding melody and punctuation by plucking the treble strings with his fingers, and also varying his tunings. This, along with his deep sonorous vocals – which beguilingly sound like Geordie, although he’s a Londoner with Scottish roots – and his emotive songwriting, flavours all his material, from tonight’s rolling rock of Turning of the Tide, the slow noirish ballad Hand of Kindness, the Tom-Waits-ish theatricality Of Al Bowlly’s In Heaven, the country lilt of Take Care The Road You Chose and all the others. Grandson Zak has clearly learnt from the best and compliments well with his own breaks, sparring with gramps on guitar and mandolin
Thompson’s tales of love, loss and redemption, of community and counterculture also nod to the futilities and pointless horrors of war, with Sandy Denny’s John The Gun, and the dark intensity of his own Guns Are The Tongues. Ending the set with the high tempo runaway Tear Stained Letter, he returns solo for an encore of the poignant Dimming of the Day, the song he sang with Linda Thompson which has been so widely covered, and which he delivers superbly. The band troop back onstage, Thompson straps on a Rickenbacker and they launch into a gloriously chiming cover of The Byrds’ The Bells Of Rhymney.
The rousing last number, Jealous Words, rings around this beautifully restored and refurbished iconic Bristol venue. Fitting for the icon that is Richard Thompson.
Richard Thompson is on tour until June 8th. Follow him on Richard Thompson and Facebook or Twitter/X .
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Words by Elfyn Griffith. Elfyn tweets here
Photos by Rob Scott
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