Gordon Giltrap
Huntingdon Hall, Worcester
Saturday
13th January
People
had been telling me for years that I should go and see Gordon Giltrap live.
The publicity describes his show as one that "guarantees to enthral
guitar aficionados, acoustic enthusiasts and music lovers in general" and
there was no shortage of middle-aged men in the bar during the interval who
could be overheard saying, "Yeah, well, I used to play a bit of guitar
but, when I see Gordon, I think I may as well give up!"
We
took our pews in Worcester's magnificent Huntingdon Hall – an 18th Century former
Methodist church and surely the city's most atmospheric music venue. Sitting
centre-stage surrounded by an array of guitars Giltrap worked his way through
an impressive selection of tunes including the loopy, multi-layered 'The Dodo's
Dream' and his homage to childhood seaside holidays 'On Camber Sands' with its rippling,
dappled arpeggios. Complaining of temporary deafness in one ear due to a virus,
he asked the audience to confirm that his favoured 'ping-pong' delay effect was
working properly.
Some
may think of Giltrap's music as slightly irrelevant, a remnant of the late 60s
folk scene that wandered off the singer-songwriter route into the side-roads of
1970s instrumental prog-pop guitar wizardry. But he is a survivor and a
reminder of that talented group of artists – and of that particular sound associated with the Transatlantic label, that included the likes of Bert Jansch,
John Renbourn and Pentangle.
Not
surprisingly, Giltrap saved 'Heartsong' (which made the top thirty in 1977) for
the finale and encored with the dark, complex 'Lucifer's Cage', hopefully
inspiring all those middle-aged lapsed guitarists to go home and dust off their
instruments.
