Midsummer played out with a magical evening at Beverley Folk Festival with Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage at St Nicholas Church. Reviewer Ruth reveals the evening’s revels.
It’s 11.30pm on the shortest night, and I’m driving across the Wolds back to the Yorkshire coast after a long day at Beverly Folk Festival. From my speakers, the instruments and voices of Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage drift out of my open window and are caught by the wind, unravelling them into the dusk. Two hours of them in person apparently just wasn’t enough.
Stepping up at short notice to cover Ruth Notman, the Folk Americana duo were new to me. As a long-time fan of Notman, I was attending with some of the ambivalence that comes with feeling like you’ve missed out on a favourite performer – but any misgivings I had about that evaporated with the first handful of notes. Sanders and Savage are nothing short of captivating, not only in their exceptional musicality, but in the enchanting intimacy of their connection, both to each other and their audience. This combined with their support, Iona Wild, making her first ‘big gig’ debut, made for a night I felt really privileged to have been present for.
Wild’s opening set, under the sun-drenched stained glass of St Nicholas Church, had no sense of inexperience about it, with a sweet and playful way of engaging her audience and a goosebump-inducing voice that made this support act seem every inch a lovely performance from a seasoned performer. Wild has been performing at open mics for a number of years and presented a range of songs, including traditional Folk, with some beautiful acapella versions of Jonny Be Fair and Black Is The Colour, an amusing diversion into the gallows of Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley (which some of us know from vintage “children’s” compilations) and, compelling originals ‘Wolf’ and ‘Siren’s Song’, sitting alongside the rest of the set with such ease that I had to check afterwards, to be certain that they were originals and not just covers of songs I didn’t know. For me, however, it was her rendition of Laying In The Backyard that really grabbed my attention, showcasing her ability to handle Americana with real talent and skill and here, her voice took on an edgier, more powerful tone that well suited the song. I enjoyed her set immensely and hope to see her perform more in the future.
This combination of folk meets Americana perfectly set the scene for Sanders and Savage, for whom this combination is a hallmark of their work. Opening with a long musical intro of duetting guitars, the interwoven fingerpicking, and rippling notes eased into Come all Ye Fair and Tender Maids, from their first album Before the Sun. The combination of their voices is just one of the things that make their performance so remarkable. Sanders has a high, clear voice that she uses with incredible control, while Savage has a rougher, smoky, almost Cajun depth. The combination is like peaches and cream with hot honey, each complimenting the other into something really special. They showcased a range of work from their albums, from their most recent, In the Dark We Grow, a homage to Jonny Dickenson with heavy Americana influence, right back through their earlier work. Shifting easily between instruments and conversation, Sanders has an impish, wry humour that puts me in mind of a comedienne I can’t quite put my finger on – while Savage is charmingly anecdotal. Not many people can cover a 4 minute retune with a story about tea making and still have the audience in the palm of their hand, and each easy conversation leads them back to their single microphone, and another beautiful song.
I particularly enjoyed Marbletown, with its lullaby pacing and longing lyrics, Polly Oh Polly (spoiler alert -it ends badly for her), the nostalgic and regretful A-Life-A-Lie, and a cheeky and unexpected cover of Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark, that made me laugh aloud when I caught wise to what they were doing.
They ended the evening pulling in their audience together for the chorus of A Thousand New Moons, with a simple refrain of ‘For Love’ that turned a ragtag congregation in a church on the solstice, into a moving folk choir. As Ben reflectively points out – the magic of live performance is that no two nights are ever the same – even with the same set list and same performers “this exact group of people will likely never be in the same room again”, immediately making the whole room feel simultaneously part of a deeper collective, and still individually significant, through a few words and our own rough harmonies against the duo’s resonant polyphony.
The entirely expected and deserved response from the enchanted audience was rewarded with an encore of Lead Bellys ‘I Will Be Glad When I Get Home’ (more participation – though of course none of us meant a word of it) and the soft goodnight, Deep Blue Sea.
Afterwards, I was so sold that I bought not just one CD for the drive home, but two. Ben offered Ink Of The Rosy Morning as being the album most like what we’d experienced that night – and while I agree (having now listened to the whole canon multiple times over), I can also tell you that nothing, nothing compares to the experience of seeing this pair live. From the soaring harmonies, the skilful storytelling, the cheerful conversation and the instrumental skill, dripping harmonics like rain from the strings, this is the kind of spellbinding that you suspect is probably supposed to exist at the solstice.
Your next chance to see them is the 18th of July in Hebden Bridge – and they hint tantalisingly at a tour in October, details of which will be released via their socials and mailing list, and I for one am signed up; trust me – you should be too.
A perfect night, and pure midsummer magic.
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