Richard Thompson, Edinburgh review: 'richly expressive'
He may be 77 now, but Richard Thomson still feels connected and vital, writes David Pollock
Richard Thompson, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
“I'm going to test your memories and your ages,” promised English folk-rock fulcrum Richard Thompson, and he wasn’t joking. His career has taken place over seven decades, and edited highlights were revisited here. At one point an unscientific poll to cheer for the audience’s favourite decade was conducted, with the 1970s seeming to just win out over the 80s.
At the beginning he went even further back with the 57-year-old Genesis Hall, composed during Thompson’s seminal years with Fairport Convention. The set’s only song from that period, it tells of the police violently clearing an infamous London squatter’s hotel in the 1960s. Thompson wrote a protest song about it: “Remember them?” he smiled ruefully.
Protest songs do exist, but Thompson doesn’t need a working knowledge of Kneecap to still feel connected and vital. He’s 77 now but could easily be a decade younger, standing throughout his 90-minute set in artistic black smock coat and beret. His guitar playing is detailed and energetic, including the deep, bassy acoustic solo which closed Valerie and the rippling speed of 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, and his voice is richly expressive.
These elements are important, given that Thompson’s playing this Scottish tour without a band, with only his wife Zara Phillips accompanying later in the set. She added a feminine vocal aspect to songs Thompson composed with his ex-wife Linda, including Down Where the Drunkards Roll and Withered & Died, and to tracks from a forthcoming new album, including Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking (“it's that kind of record”) and the country-folk waltz Pipe Dreams.
“It's a relief not having any hits, because then you have to play them all the time,” smiled Thompson before the majestic I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. “This was closest, number 41 in the top 40.” He’s right, though. With a catalogue longer than many adult lifespans, he was able to encore on the audience request Al Bowlly's in Heaven and the set staple Wall of Death, and rely on his audience being equally rapt by both.
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