RadZ 2024
Intertwining strings and voices, veterans of roots rock bring their charm to Dutch countryside for one enchanted night of music.
& AD VANDERVEEN –
Greetings From Grolloo
These artists may have released only two studio albums together, the records separated by an entire decade, yet that’s quite right because their true rapport and duo dynamics have always been demonstrated best in front of an audience – and to experience it one should go no further than the report from the two friends’ 2003 performance at the Grolloo Folk Festival. Picking up the pieces from their original joint effort “The Iain Adventure” – which also fleshed out a few previously issued solo cuts – and adding a selection of their personal numbers to the set, the pair created an arresting narrative where Iain and Ad’s individual lines are spellbinding and where vocal harmonies are sublime. Of course, the likes of “Woodstock” and “First Feeling” – the former a Matthews’ classic, a Joni Mitchell cover he appropriated ages ago, the later a staple of Vanderveen’s repertoire – require such a treatment, but applying similar magic to the rest of the songs amounts to a transporting experience.
With Ric Sanders, who stayed over after his outing with Simon Nicol earlier that evening, adding fiddle to a couple of offerings, the fluttering, finely filigreed epic “Funk And Fire” included, and with harmonica helping “Soul Power” soar, there’s nary a moment devoid of emotional richness. Still, the English warbler’s “The Girl With The Clouds In Her Eyes” and his Dutch counterpart’s “Anchor” don’t need more than mellifluous vocals and delicately insistent strum to seep into the listener’s very psyche. As Ad’s electric licks jive around Iain’s acoustic passages, the players allow themselves to unleash warm rocking on “Lamb In Armour” and “Satisfied” which takes folk fibers to the fore, and to wrap “To Be White” in righteous, barely-there anger, but the duo’s tender, albeit deep, reading of Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street” is immensely moving.
And this is what the whole of the concert does too. An important document.
*****
