Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Location: Zdraviliški park / Bled / Slovenia
Concert date: 15.08.2008
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 0
Saturday night at the almost-traditional international Okarina etno festival in Bled, which brings talented musicians from every corner of the world each year, was especially tempting this time. The bill featured a very interesting English folk rock outfit, Rainbow Chasers, a real feast for the ears and eyes of anyone who loves traditional Celtic and Anglo-Saxon acoustic melodies. Their central figure, Ashley Hutchings, is a living music legend and probably the most respected bassist on the British folk rock scene, best known as the founder of some of the most important British folk rock bands, such as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Albion Band. In short, he’s something like what John Mayall is for blues rock. Mr. Hutchings is respected not only as the grand old man of the British folk rock scene, but also as a songwriter of countless tunes, a poet and a music director of England’s National Theatre.
Rainbow Chasers is the latest of his bands, and with it he’s trying out a blend of traditional British folk music and some more modern musical elements. He’s gathered three young, highly talented musicians who are still making their name on the music scene. The female duo is Jo Hamilton on viola, acoustic guitar and vocals, and Ruth Angell on violin and vocals. Both come from Ashley’s previous band, Albion Band, while acoustic guitarist/singer Joe Topping is a fresh addition, having recently replaced founding member Mark Hutchings. During the show, Joe proved he’s just as at home on electric mandolin and bouzouki. All four members of the band are not only top-notch instrumentalists but also excellent singers, and they pulled off plenty of multi-part harmonies during the set.
Despite a rather unpromising view of the front of the stage at first, a nice crowd eventually gathered in Bled’s Zdraviliški park before the show, which, by the way, was free. Plenty of English tourists were among them, along with a not-insignificant share of young people. Over the course of their set, Rainbow Chasers played lots of acoustic, laid-back folk rock songs with gentle, infectious Celtic melodies, a few instrumentals, one a cappella number, and some livelier stuff too, which warmed up everyone who’d surrendered to the pleasant daze. They opened with a bouncy tune that, by their own account, always reminds them of the hilly country back home in the north of England, which of course can’t compare to our hills.
Mr. Hutchings isn’t just an excellent folk rock bassist and singer. In his musical expression he goes beyond the boundaries of ordinary English folk rock and experiments with elements from other corners of the world. So his band also played “The First Europeans”, a song built around violin and viola and drawing on the tradition of Romani music, or, in this case, more precisely – Gypsy music (and no, we don’t mean that word in any negative sense here). According to Ashley, with their constant moving from place to place, they were in a way the first modern Europeans, since frequent moves and travel are so typical of us today. Among the excellent performances, what impressed most was the exceptional harmony between the band members, the way they traded vocal parts, and the weaving of varied, acoustically seasoned melodies, both the romantic ones and the more dance-friendly, bouncy ones.
Throughout the show, Ashley watches over the two young women and the young man like a caring father, now and then nudging them toward a more committed approach with some lively gesture. During one of the bouncier parts of the set, Mr. Hutchings even called on the audience to come dance in front of the stage. Only the exuberantly hopping festival organizer and host of the evening, Leo Ličof, took him up on it, along with two visibly tipsy teenagers who showed off some “skills” left over from their prom. In the middle of the set, because the church bells kept ringing and, as they put it, interfering with the mostly gentle music they play, they took a short break, during which Mr. Hutchings personally sold and signed both albums his band has released so far. My only negative remark is that, as a finale, perhaps for the benefit of latecomers, they played that same playful tune they’d opened with once more. They like it so much because it always reminds them of the “hilly” country back home, while I’m sure they have plenty of other songs to choose from.
Of course they came back for the obligatory encore, which warmed up the crowd all the way to the back rows. They’d probably have played a song or two more if the evening chill hadn’t already started to bite. Mr. Hutchings also announced that he hopes they can return to our parts as soon as possible, since they like it here a lot, Bled in particular, with its idyllic lake and hills that always stir his poetic and songwriting inspiration. The magical evening of authentic English folk rock, delivered by its forefather and his young crew, who with their nostalgic and melancholy melodies especially won over all the romantic souls, somehow flew by too fast despite the increasingly sharp evening cold. And the ambitious festival organizer Leo Ličof, who deserves full credit for the excellent organization and the good hosting, is already promising that next year (12 years after their last appearance here) he plans to bring in none other than the legendary Fairport Convention.
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