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The
Mellstock Band - Raising the Dead
review by
Peter Wyton
Cheltenham Town Hall
December 2, 2003
In a mass break-out from
catafalques, tombs and neglected graveyards throughout North
Gloucestershire, representatives of an extinct social species, lured by
familiar sounds, were drawn ethereally to the Pillar Room of the Town
Hall, to join an enthusiastic (live) audience who were not at all put out
by this strange manifestation. These spectral freeloaders - I didn’t see
one pay at the door - were, without exception, long dead village Squires,
those defunct authoritarian figures of rural England who might, depending
on individual whim, pat your child paternally on the head at a village
concert and bestow an orange upon him, then order you out of your tied
cottage at a fortnights’ notice for any minor misdemeanor conceived to
threaten the status quo.
To the living and the dead alike, the Mellstock Band spoke, sang and made
music which they could all understand and enjoy. Hard grafting
professional musicians, their programme permitted them not a minute of
respite from entrance to exit - they marketed their CDs and books
personally during the interval - and even threw in a marvelously costumed
mummers play for good measure.
The floating audience of the departed must have relished, in particular,
the carols and part-songs with which they were regaled by the village
choirs and bands whom they graciously invited to share their hearths for a
few hours at Christmastide - if at few other times of the year. The
corporeal listeners certainly responded to every reading, anecdote and
musical item with prolonged applause.
Band members Dave Townsend, Tim Hill, Philip Humphries and Charles Spicer
are obviously graduates with honours from some University of Entertainment
unspecified in the programme. The range of instruments played was alone
notable, instruments with such wonderful names, too. If I’d ever heard a
humstrum or a serpent before, I’d been unaware of it. I’ll know better
next time. I’ll know a lot more, too, about traditional country
merry-making, mostly from the Hardy/Dorset tradition, although the players
launched periodic raids on rustic Devon, Sussex and Oxfordshire.
If you see the Mellstock Band advertised in your local paper, don’t delay,
pick up a phone and book to see them. Take both your living and dead
relatives, but bear in mind that any of the latter who didn’t carry Squire
rank will be obliged to eat in the servants’ hall after the performance.
© Peter Wyton
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