The Unthanks
Poole Lighthouse
Sunday 17th April 2022
19.30
SET LIST
The Great Selkie of Skurry
The Old News (?)
The Sandgate Dandling Song
The King of Rome
Magpie
The Month of January
The Bay of Fundy
Sorrow Aways
INTERVAL
Gan to The Kye
A Whistling Woman
Lucky Gilchrist
The Isabella Coke Ovens
Royal Blackbird
My Singing Bird
Mount The Air
ENCORE
Farweel Regality
Sorrows Away (reprise)
THE UNTHANKS
Rachel Unthanks – vocals, clogs
Becky Unthanks – vocals, clogs
Adrian McNally – piano, organ, drone on a squeezebox, guitar, vocal
Niopha Keegan – violin, vocal
Chris Price – acoustic bass, bass guitar, vocal
WITH
Lizzie Jones – trumpet
Martin Douglas drums
?- second violin
? – viola
? – cello
? – guitar
(I will add the names if you Comment below)
This is the Sorrows Away tour though the album isn’t due until Autumn 2022. The tour goes on through to August 2022. Most excitingly it has the Unthanks 11-piece band. The large band is a major bonus, but I first saw them at Exeter with trumpet and string quartet (though not guitar and drums). As they kept mentioning, two years away from live performance is a long time. Too long. However, they’re back on this long tour, and they sound better than ever.
They set up in the traditional way … drums stage left facing in to the centre, not out to the audience, and behind a perspex screen to avoid sound leaking into vocal mics. Piano stage right. String quartet rear centre. Bass next to the drums and further back.
Drums in the middle was a big band then rock band innovation. A lot of 50s and 60s jazz groups put the drums far stage left … the position Levon Helm often adopted with The Band too.
They were in The Theatre rather than the larger Concert Hall at Poole. It looked near full, though with Covid you always see a few vacant seats in prime positions … no shows rather than not sold. With a little publicity, they could have filled the concert hall. Poole Lighthouse is as ever notoriously poor on publicity. I get emails daily from other major theatres, but never from my local one. When Rachel introduced audience singing, Adrian mentioned the dead acoustic because it was a theatre, not a concert hall. The symphony hall next door is a very lively acoustic, and I’ve seen several amplified bands with bad sound there, but The Unthanks sound was impeccable (and low volume and natural sounding) so I think they’d have got a good mix wherever. The theatre stage was just the right size for them, and for their very good lighting plot. They’d have been in the middle of a large area next door, or too spread out. I thought The Theatre worked for sound and lighting.
It also means unfamiliar material from the forthcoming album. Not that is a surprise for The Unthanks. They like doing new stuff, to the point where three songs seem the most that they carry over from one tour to another. When the material is as strong as the songs from the forthcoming album, it’s no problem.
The songs are long ballads, beginning with The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry. It’s a folk classic from Shetland and Orkney with an impressive folk heritage (and various tunes too) … Joan Baez (as Silkie), Pete Seeger and The Byrds both did versions as I Come And Stand At Every Door to one of the melodies. June Tabor, Steeleye Span, Trees … the list goes on. They used it to start sparsely and gradually introduce the strings, then the acoustic bass and drums, with the first of Lizzie Jones exceptional trumpet parts.
The second was a Becky Unthanks composition and lead vocal. I looked at the earlier set lists where it wasn’t in this position. After it, Rachel said that she was trying to recall what next, which happens when you change the setlist around. I assume it was The Old News because it had lines about tell me the whole truth, and that it was just switched in the running order with The Bay of Fundy.
The Sandgate Dandling Song saw Becky go off and Rachel sing solo. It’s a 19th century song by Robert Nunn, who was a blind fiddler from Tyneside. They played it last time I saw them on the “Unaccompanied tour” in Wimborne in 2019. Adrian took the penultimate verse on his own, a nice contrast.
King of Rome is a Dave Sudbury song about a famous racing pigeon. June Tabor did it on a folk compilation which also features the Unthanks, so may be the more immediate inspiration.
The illustration is something I found a couple of years ago. It hangs in our downstairs loo.
Dave Sudbury: In a glass case in Derby Museum there’s a pigeon called The King of Rome. In 1913 it flew from Italy back to its home loft in the West End of Derby. The Old West End used to be the rough side of town and Charlie Hudson, the man who bred The King lived there. I wrote the song because it’s about the kind of place I came from and the people I knew there.
Sleeve notes to The Rough With The Smooth LP., 1987
Niopha Keegan joined Rachel and Becky to sing their best-known song, Magpie, aka Theme from The Detectorists. The three of them were accompanied only by Adrian with a drone effect from some type of squeezebox … players of these instruments are fussy about the right word. I won’t risk a wrong one. You know it. It was sublime- another one of their best-known songs judiciously placed. The base One for sorrow rhyme was in The Taxidermist’s Daughter play which we saw on Thursday in Chichester. The Unthanks do it better!
The Month of January was Rachel solo, on a lilting song with Irish connections.
The Bay of Fundy is the virtual single – if you order the album in advance from The Unthanks site, you get it as a free download. The song is credited to Gordon Bok from 1975, though Rachel said their dad used to sing it.
Bay of Fundy is the preview video from the new album, as well as a download for those ordering it. The LINK IS HERE TO THE VIDEO. Adrian switched to acoustic guitar, meaning two guitars on the song. It showcases the drama in the 11-piece line-up, with the multiple changes in texture and vocals.
The first part of the show finished with the title track from the forthcoming album, Sorrows Away with audience singalong. This is so infectious, such a strong song that it will be in their setlist forever, I think. It’s a gorgeous melody.
THE INTERVAL
The second set started and we noticed that both Rachel and Becky had their clogs on … I had noticed mics pointing at the floor before. This was a familiar one to start, Gan To The Kye which opened Last in 2011. Last is my favourite Unthanks album, though after tonight’s concert, I suspect Sorrows Away may even surpass it.
A Whistling Woman is a tremendous song. It starts off with frantic minimalist piano from Adrian, then bass guitar and drums join in with an insistent almost Canned Heat riff. But then there’s a switch to a melodic centre, that makes it seem like two quite different songs, before returning to the insistent riff. You don’t expect The Unthanks to rock out, but here they did.
Clogs away! Lucky Gilchrist, from way back on Here’s The Tender Coming album. Another favourite. We love the sisters clog dancing.
The Isabella Coke Ovens is a Rachel composition. She said it was inspired by long walks (we all did those in Covid lockdown) past the abandoned coke ovens, each of which had a girl’s name attached. It featured guitar and fine double bass work.
The Royal Blackbird started a bird suite … they could do an album compilation of bird-related songs. It’s a traditional song, Jacobite, and apparently the “royal blackbird” was code for Bonnie Prince Charlie, though as he spoke French and Italian better than English and knew no Gaelic, he may not have known that.As so often, there is folklore argument over whether it’s Scottish or Irish.
Once in fair England my blackbird did flourish
He was the chief flower that in it did spring
Prime ladies of honour his person did nourish
Because that he was the true son of a king
But this false fortune, which still is uncertain
Has caused a long parting between him and me
His same I’ll advance in Spain or in France
And I’ll seek out my blackbird wherever he be.’
My Singing Bird is a Belfast song according to the introduction, and Niopha Keegan stepped to the front to sing lead vocal and play violin, with the sisters accompanying her. Beautifully sung, but also a beautiful song. This is folk, I checked online, and the Irish claim it as a Munster (South-West) song. Sinead o’Connor has done it. The Clancy Brothers have done it. Then I find someone arguing it’s American. As Karen grew up in Belfast, we will definitely go for Belfast origins.
Mount The Air was the title track of their 2015 album.The double bass was exceptional, but as throughout the show, increasingly in the second half, there is a thrill every time Lizzie Jones picks up that trumpet.
The encore as Farweel Regality which dates back to Rachel Unthanks and The Winterset. The best i’ve heard it.
They finished with a reprise of Sorrows Away. A splendid time was had by all. We felt refreshed and mentally cleansed by two hours of such sublime music.
In conclusion, this will almost certainly be the best show with the best sound and material I will see this year.
Last word to Karen: What they are capturing is something completely different to what anyone else is doing, and it is a spiritual experience to see them.
THE UNTHANKS ON THIS BLOG:
Peter Viney's Blog 
Here’s the rest of the band: 2nd violin, Kath Ord. Viola, Chrissie Slater. Cello, Ele Leckie. Guitar and bass, Dan Rogers.
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