Maximum Bob

Photo by Jason Bechtel.

Occasionally when I go to a gig, there’s an issue with the sound. Sometimes it’s just plain bad (Dylan at the NEC); sometimes it’s too loud (any local band in any local venue); sometimes the acoustics are wrong. You’d think that a venue like the Radcliffe Centre (it’s a church, basically) would have some of these issues: a very high ceiling, with beams, tall windows, quite a few hard, reflective surfaces; somehow it doesn’t. Perhaps the beams in the ceiling help to diffuse the soundwaves; clearly the long curtains at most of the windows (though some were just hanging, having fallen from their mountings) helped, too; the fact that there were people in there (big sacks of absorbent water), also contributed.

Anyway, on both occasions that Tift Merritt has played this venue (previously in December 2005), she has remarked on what a great place it is. The grand piano on stage clearly turned her head, but she was also tempted (both times) to step out from behind the microphone and sing without amplification, just because she liked the way the place sounded. Needless to say, you could have heard a pin drop.

The audience last night were freakishly polite. There were a few young kids there, including our two, but on the whole it was the usual crowd of grey hairs, bald heads, and beer bellies. This shouldn’t stop Tift Merrit (born 1975) from appealing to a younger demographic, but this was Buckingham on a Saturday night.

Merritt is one of only two artists I’ve ever seen brave enough to step out from behind the mic (the other is Jonathan Richman), and it says something about her as a performer that she was keen to do this, and as keen as possible to take advantage of the venue’s grand piano, scanning her set list for songs she could play at it.

She played most of her new record, Another Country, with a couple each from Bramble Rose and Tambourine. Although she had at least one of her band with her (Zeke Hutchings, the drummer), she played the set entirely solo, with Zeke acting as the waterboy/roadie. She played one acoustic guitar, which she tuned herself, and she played harmonica in a holder, and she played the grand. Support act Jaymay also played the piano, but the difference in the sound produced by Tift Merritt was apparent. She brought the instrument to life, and pumped away with the foot pedal to add rolling dynamics to her playing.

So quiet were the audience that you could hear her foot tapping on the floor, as last time, keeping time, which was fantastic. From a recording you want one thing, from a live performance, something else. Merritt is one of those artists whose records - while great - capture but a tiny percentage of the power in the voice. Catch her if you can.

She’s playing Edinburgh (The Pleasance) tonight; Rescue Rooms, Nottingham on Monday, National Centre for Early Music in York on Wednesday, then Chorley and Newcastle before flitting off to Paris and other parts of Europe. See MySpace for full details. Still, it’s unlikely that any of those places will be a church with a grand piano and great acoustics.