VELVET THUNDER

If music of this quality, from two bands for whom the music really does do the talking, can get all of the seats occupied, then hopefully there will be more new dawns for this vibrant and indefatigable genre to come. Emerald or otherwise. A very, very fine night.

PHOTOS: Andy Cowley

This show is indeed a rare opportunity, it has to be said. Based in Deepest Cornwall, The Emerald Dawn are not often to be found venturing north of Birmingham, where flat-capped dragons roam the earth, so when this final show of a Northern mini-tour found them linking up with local Yorkshire neo-proggers This Winter Machine, it was clearly not a show to be missed – and a trip across the Pennines was duly inked into the diary. Adding to the interest was the fact that the Seven Arts venue is one I have personally never encountered before, and it is always good to check out another venue which will host gigs on the prog circuit, with so many having succumbed to insurmountable issues post-Covid and the energy crisis. Finding the place isn’t quite so straightforward, and SatNav proved to be a boon, being the only way to tell that what looked like an unremarkable little bar and possibly restaurant proved to be in fact the Seven Arts Centre itself. Even approaching the door made it uncertain, until the sight of an old-fashioned ‘person on the door’ seated at a small table showed the turning away from the bar area to where the music would be happening, a cosy, roughly 100-capacity area hidden at the back of the building.

Even walking into the venue area proves to be unusual, with the layout being quite unlike any I have seen before, comprising not the small standing area and stage one might expect, but in fact a set of heftily tiered seating and no stage whatsoever in the traditional sense: the bands just set up and play at floor level as the crowd loom over them in their raised banks of seats – though said seats are very healthily full, something to always celebrate in these days of having to tear people away from the TV and their own inertia (many might have got accustomed to staying in during the long Covid break, who can say?). One might think from this bizarre reversal of the usual protocol, with the audience sitting looking down at the band on the floor, rather than standing looking up at them on the stage, might make it very difficult to project much of a show or spectacle, or to generate an atmosphere. And in truth, it isn’t ideal certainly, but in the end it works out rather better than first impressions might lead you to expect.

This Winter Machine take to the stage first, to a good welcome from what is something of a ‘home’ crowd for the Yorkshire outfit. There have been plenty of comings and goings through the rather fluid Machine ranks over the years, and indeed only founding frontman Al Winter remains from the last time I saw the band a few years earlier, but he has always had the knack of bringing in shrewd replacements, and so it proves tonight, with all of the other four members of the band acquitting themselves admirably – of particular note being the excellent drummer Hugo Donno-Fuller, playing his first show with the band. There are a few minor sound issues throughout, with the excellent guitar work of the other newcomer Ralph Cardell being a little low in the mix at times, and the bass of Dave Close mixed a little high by comparison, creating a slight audible vibration at times, but nothing that seriously detracts from proceedings. Leigh Perkins mans the keyboards with considerable aplomb, and gives the songs some impressive colour throughout. The setlist is carefully chosen, featuring songs from all four of the band’s studio albums to date, with the selections from the most recent The Clockwork Man standing out particularly well, and there is no lull in the pacing of the material at all. One thing which strikes me, in live performance far more than on record for some reason, is the occasional similarity of Al’s voice to that of the late Huw Lloyd-Langton, giving the material a slight feel of 1980s Hawkwind at times which is quite at odds with the composition itself, and it’s a nice textural contrast to these ears. The closing song of the set is Fractured from the debut album The Man Who Never Was, dedicated with some emotion to a good friend of the band who recently passed away, and it makes for a particularly effective finale.

A short break comes next, seeing both bands scuttling about with frantic purpose to effect the change-over as quickly and effectively as possible in order to fit everything in, and they manage it with some aplomb, so that The Emerald Dawn can take to the stage – or rather, the floor – in good time. This is the first time I have managed to catch this Cornish-based band’s live show, after enjoying their recorded output for some years, and right from the off it is no disappointment. To put the band into perspective for those unfamiliar with them, The Emerald Dawn are a four-piece, though at times sounding as if they number at least six owing to the multi-instrumentalism on display. Bassist Dave Greenaway and drummer Tom Jackson are obligated to stay on their designated instruments in order to maintain a solid rhythm section underpinning the musical flights of fancy around them (which they do extraordinarily well incidentally, with both commendable discipline and also creativity when appropriate), but the eye, and ear, is naturally drawn to the front two (or perhaps ‘side two’ given their stage positions) of Tree Stewart and Ally Carter, who rotate instruments with extraordinary panache. Tree is principally identifiable as a keyboard player (she is seated at a three-tier array of them), yet also produces an acoustic guitar and a flute at regular intervals, switching between them without even leaving her seat, as well as electronic percussion. Ally, meanwhile, at the other side of the stage (the front centre remains oddly empty for most of the time), himself shifts between lead guitar, saxophone (two different ones) and his own keyboard, with the swift moving between disciplines as different as stringed and wind instruments getting my fingers in a metaphorical knot just watching – I have enough trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time these days. All of this seamless transitioning allows the band to recreate parts of quite significant complexity with pinpoint accuracy, including parts which might have been assumed to be virtually impossible without reliance on backing tapes. It’s quite mesmerising to watch.

The band open, appropriately enough, with And I Stood Transfixed from 2021’s To Touch The Sky – appropriate in the sense that we as an audience sit transfixed – before moving onto The March Of Time from the most recent In Time album, but a real highlight comes along with the third piece, being a track from the upcoming double album The Land, The Sea, The Air. This 15-minute epic about climate change comes over astonishingly well, and makes the best use yet of the video screen backdrop, with visuals (like all the band’s signature artwork) created by Stewart. She also utilises the aforementioned electronic percussion during this track, with a device entirely new to me called (I believe) a Handsonic – basically a small pad played by tapping different areas of it with the fingers, it manages to sound entirely organic in a way which is reminiscent somehow of an Arabic or Indian instrument, combining percussion with strings. There is even an interlude during which the insanely multi-talented Tree (a trained circus performer as if the music and art were not enough) comes out front for a change and, backed by the rest of the band, demonstrates what is known as ‘contact juggling’, performing seemingly weightless feats of balance and movement with a succession of glass spheres. Short songs do not have much presence in the Emerald Dawn universe, but they only perform one of their over 20-minute epics tonight, in the shape of the closing Out Of Time, the superb centrepiece of the In Time album – probably a wise move in terms of pacing the set, despite the claims the The Ascent or The Child Within may have had on another day – and the audience respond with huge enthusiasm.

There is more to The Emerald Dawn than the prosaic nature of the pieces performed, or even the musical skill on display, however, and while watching the show I find myself musing on just what sets them apart – especially in a live setting such as this. It isn’t a simple matter of sweeping grandeur or tricky time changes being executed as a quick salve for the emotions or the mind, however – there are other bands who trade on those particular currencies and give them far more emphasis. It isn’t the power of the music, as visceral impact or heavy riffing is not the game here – progressive metal is off the Emerald table entirely. No, as I think about it, it becomes clear to me that what beguiles me so particularly is the remarkable trick of balancing a retrospective feel of ‘golden age’ progressive rock with an adherence to the original core values of the music in its formative days, of using the music to progress and break new ground – not in the sense of David Bowie changing his entire identity for almost every album, or suddenly doing a Spinal Tap ‘Jazz Odyssey’ and leaving their core sound and audience behind. No, rather the performance here calls to mind what could sit entirely at ease in the studio of The Old Grey Whistle Test in around 1974, teasing the notes and the sonic structure around thoughtfully so that not only the audience, but also the band, may not quite seem to be sure exactly where it will go next. It’s measured, almost glacial in its progression at times, and yet it is always moving, always seeking to find that next field where the grass looks particularly green. It’s an extraordinarily trick to pull off, being so retrospective and yet progressive in the same moment, and the closest parallel I can think of in the moment is when I had the same feeling at a performance by the criminally overlooked Thieves’ Kitchen, quite some years ago. This, to me, is what makes The Emerald Dawn stand out among a field of highly gifted contemporaries.

Visually as well, the band are striking in their marvellous non-conformity, as they are clearly four very different individuals, albeit joined by a common cause. Greenaway and the younger Jackson at the back give the impression of a particularly alternative-minded physics teacher and a bearded night-club doorman bonding over the love of a good rhythm section, and both draw the eye. It’s a little like an alternative-universe Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead, transported and given new instruments. Behind her keyboard mound, Tree Stewart exudes an aura of classic 21st-century enduring hippiedom, bare footed and beatifically smiling almost throughout, while Ally Carter stoically gives off the impression that in his mind Catweazle was Reality TV and he doesn’t care who knows it. It’s a marvellously disparate and timeless bunch who nonetheless seem more like a genuine family onstage than a lot of other bands I could name. Visually entertaining without even seemingly trying to be – another tricky balancing act to manage.

I have to say that this show being sold out, even for a relatively small venue, gave me a huge sense of pleasure, with recent times being marked by regular reports of the difficulty of getting people out to see new music by smaller bands, and the small turnouts that some brilliant musicians have found themselves getting in these post-Covid days. If music of this quality, from two bands for whom the music really does do the talking, can get all of the seats occupied, then hopefully there will be more new dawns for this vibrant and indefatigable genre to come. Emerald or otherwise. A very, very fine night.