Thursday 27th September 07 - Music Exchange featuring Dave Abbott Jess Banister The Harri Watts Band and Ernest (Rare Acoustic Performance) (2/2) By Michelle Dee

(1/2), (2/2).

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After the set, while we all stood around outside having a smoke one chap said, Not a good idea to alienate half your audience, but the applause showed that many agreed with the sentiment. Poor Billy came next, another cheery number about death, played in the story telling tradition that echoes and replays the feelings of parents today whose children are sent off to war, to die. Up bowing, down bowing, filmic and expressive, paints pictures of battlefields of fallen soldiers, faces half hidden in the dirt. The control of Derek’s vocal the range and variation, in tone and in timbre, the timing everything; is arresting and highly entertaining.

Then finally it was time for Ernest’s third appearance since new bassist Jim joined the band. Having seen Ernest’s stripped down performance at Sunday Sesh in 06 which I commented on, on this site, I was very much looking forward to another rare glimpse of Ernest unplugged. I’m blown away immediately with the subtle fragility of Red Leader and time becomes frozen for the next forty minutes. Stay Calm is accompanied by hand drumming and homemade rice shakers from Ian. There’s newly written underlying guitar lines from Simon, especially for tonight’s performance.

Routine sounds very different, with tempo shifts and chiming xylophone rings childlike and magnetic on Puppies. Then more new guitar lines bluesy and funk, then a Spanish influence creeps in and out with a cymbal shimmer. The band Ernest have recently received great compliment from Diane Cilento (star of the original cult film The Wiccaman) on the vocal sample at the beginning of Crash Tested. Deep reverberating bass intro and top end guitar thrills all recently transposed; transformed inside the mind of Ernest.

My heart leapt, sank, then leapt again as Terry (lead vocals) introduced Elsie’s Song, the only other time I’ve heard this poignant number was at her wake. Then Terry sat on a dimly lit stage and sang solo, guitar in hand a song inspired by the love and passion the writer had for his band. Listening now, the lyrics capture her writing, her singular determined approach to everything she undertook. The song’s form has moved on and changed as everything has to, since that grey Friday, when friends gathered to pay and play tribute to her brief life.

Musicians’ toys, shiny and new, create rhythm and sounds, that bubble and grounds, lips quiver as cymbals shiver, and wet eyes blink, while we watch listen think, of what might have been. I look away momentarily and as I do I see Elsie’s partner has, just at that moment walked in the room, and is now standing at the bar; kismet surely. I look around again and see a group of young Japanese sat listening intently. Ernest’s performance is received with much applause and I’d like to think some of the same faces tonight will be watching when this unique band plays these shores once more.

Ernest are heading East in November to play live in Japan. We’d like to wish them a safe journey and await their tales of adventure from fabled places. www.ernestnet.com

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Comments System Prototype Version 1.0 by Mo

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