retaining the moment

I do as I please
Now I'm on my knees
Your skin is something that I stir into my tea
And I am watching you
and you are starry, starry, starry
and I'm tumbling down, and I check a frown
It's why I love this town
Well, just look around
just see me serenaded hourly! celebrated sourly!
dedicated dourly; waltzing with the open sea
clam, crap, cockle, cowrie
will you just look at me?


Joanna Newsom
Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie


For all the live music I've seen over the years, there are surprisingly few moments which I feel I'll never forget:

Sweet Honey in the Rock launching into an emotional spontaneous singing of Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song' in collaboration with the Jamaican dub poet Jean Binta-Breeze.

The Dutch jazz drummer Han Bennick, silencing the crowd at an Andy Sheppard gig baying for an encore, by walking up the centre aisle of the stalls playing on every available surface (floor, chairs, fittings, the front of the stage) and finally reaching an immense solo on his kit.

The usually demure pianist Imogen Cooper, at a masterclass, jumping and stamping on the stage, grunting, shouting and throwing her arms around as if casting a spell, in an attempt to convey the essence of a late Schubert sonata.

And a few others probably...

But I think there were two last night, courtesy of Joanna Newsom (and I promise to stop going on about her after this - for a while anyway):

Her emotional response to her support act Roy Harper, a hero of hers, who played his great lost album 'Stormcock' - her favourite album - in it's entirity. She described watching his performance from the box just behind me as something which she could see herself describing to her grandchildren - the musical highpoint of her life. To which the man himself shouted out 'You're welcome!' from the same box :)

The discovery of the song quoted above, which is simply a most perfect piece of music. I must have heard it a few times before: I've got her first album alternating with her second on iTunes / iPod at the moment, but it's sheer purity just hadn't registered before.

Other than that, it was a great gig :)