Lindsay Cooper tribute featuring Henry Cow, etc.

Henry Cow, News From Babel, Music for Films, Oh Moscow
Saturday 22nd November 2014, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, UK

Sorry this is brief but a wonderful evening was had in a packed LBT in Huddersfield. First up were Henry Cow (augmented by Alfred Harth and Michel Berckmans (from Univers Zero)) who ran through Lindsay's contribution to 'Western Culture'. Frith held the attention as he conducted the rest through the labyrinthine arrangements. Great soaring guitar from Frith. Suddenly, Dagmar was on stage for the News From Babel segment. I felt that things really started to get going here. John Greaves substituted some of the Wyatt parts from the albums. Perhaps Dagmar's performance on 'Late Evening' was the highlight. For the final half, Sally Potter and Phil Minton appeared on stage to take us through a selection of 'Music For Films' which ended with a stunning 'As She Breathes'. The final section was taken from 'Oh Moscow' and again, it was great to hear this material live. The crowd went wild and the ensemble returned for an encore. For this they chose 'Anno Mirablis' from the first News from Babel album, which proved to be a fitting climax to the proceedings. We will never see such a performance again, and I am delighted to see Henry Cow on the same stage again, some 37 years later!

Set list - Henry Cow (Half the Sky, Gretel's Tale, Look Back, Falling Away, Slice
News from Babel (Moss, Black Gold, Dragon at the core, Waited/Justice, Late Evening, Victory)
Music for Films (Women's Wrongs, Lots of Larks, General Strike, Iceland, Empire Song, Plate Dance, As She Breathes)
Oh Moscow - (England Descending, On German Soil, Lovers, Oh Moscow, Forgotten Fruit)

Encore - Anno Mirabilis (News from Babel)

PS: Stuart Maconie's BBC Radio 6 programme reviewed the concert last night, for podcast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04sxzc6





Edited by Flight123 - December 01 2014 at 08:10

Syzygy wrote: The set list at the Barbican was the same, and everybody I know who was present for both seems to think that there wasn't much to choose between them. The Henry Cow segment was a bit ragged round the edges, but the remainder was spellbinding; once Zeena Parkins sat down at her harp everything came together beautifully. Good performances all round, but I thought that John Greaves did sterling work on both bass and vocals, especially as he had played hardly any of this music before. All in all a fitting tribute to a remarkable musician and composer.

absolutely... every new section of this tribute cocert just kept getting better and better, even drawing a few spine-chills from me, though I'd never heard Oh Moscow album before...

Phil Minton was above the rest of the singers I thought...

As for choosing which of the better night it was, most of the people (the ones who were at both shows and that I trust their judgment) said it was about the same... Maybe the smaller venue in Yorkshire gave a sense of intimacy that wasdn't present in the fairly big Barbican theatre