SUPPORT: Beth Rowley
Poole Lighthouse
Wednesday 12th February 2025
19.30
Catherine Ward Thomas – vocal, acoustic guitar
Lizzie Ward Thomas -vocal, keyboard
Billy Adamson – electric guitar, acoustic guitar
SET LIST
Yellow
Lose Me
Boomerang
Meant To Be Me
Ain’t That Easy
Almost Easy
I Do (Song for Catherine’s Wedding)
More Than You Could Know (Song for Elizabeth’s Wedding)
When It’s Not Me
Come Back Baby
This Is Gonna Hurt
Miles Don’t Matter
Proof
Way Back When
Footnotes
Push For The Stride
Next To You
Cartwheels
Carry You Home
encore
Love Does
They’re twin sisters, from Petersfield, Hampshire. We saw them at Hyde Park in 2018, supporting Paul Simon, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt, and immediately bought an album.
I’ve had a frustrating day. I now have three albums, From Where We Stand, Cartwheels and Invitation, but I couldn’t find where Invitation had ended up. Doh! The other two were filed under W, but Invitation was filed under T.
This is billed as an intimate acoustic evening. Acoustic is a wider word than you might think. The keyboard is electric, the backing guitar is electric, the acoustic guitar has a pick up. I suppose it means ‘no drums or bass.’
There are three on stage, Catherine is stage right with guitar, Elizabeth is stage left with keyboard. In the middle at the rear is their brilliant guitarist, Billy Adamson. They stay in their seats throughout. For twins, they avoid looking alike … Catherine has dark hair, Lizzie has blonde. One I guess will be dyed. There are always tales of the special nature of sibling vocal harmonies, The Everly Brothers, The Beverly Sisters (who had the older sister and a pair of twins). There is something to it, and twins takes it up a level. Billy Adamson, on electric and acoustic guitars has a vital role. On some numbers, his rhythmic playing replaces the drums and bass guitar of the original effectively.
Cartwheels, their biggest-selling album provides most songs. How do you place their music? Early on they received Country & Western awards, with their early albums being recorded in Nashville. I’ve seen them listed as ‘Americana’ even (which is daft). When they introduce Way Back When late in the set, you get a run of country oriented songs. I’ve heard them called ‘the British Taylor Swift’ but can’t comment, because the only Taylor Swift album I have is the first, which is indeed country. They are popular, but not THAT popular. When I saw them at Hyde Park, I sensed Fleetwood Mac, but then two female vocalists plus superb guitar solos behind them will conjure that.
The opening is well thought out. A quiet version of Coldplay’s Yellow. Start with something everybody knows.
Lose Me is a strong start to the main set, and goes into Boomerang which is a well-known catchy item from their repertoire, and both are from their #1 album, Cartwheels, so I noted they followed an ancient rule. Hit the audience with two of your four best known, do the set, finish with your two best-known. The percussive electric guitar strumming on Lose Me is tremendous propulsion, and then he switched to acoustic for Boomerang. A very nice acoustic with cutaway, too.
Meant To Be Me is from Invitation, and the only song from that album.
They like the word Easy. Ain’t That Easy was next (from Restless Minds). There was a line about fucking up the lyric. One of five or six F words in the set.
It was followed by Almost Easy from Cartwheels. The guitarist went off here, I think for a few songs.
We were into the wedding set. Neither of these songs have been released, but will be. There was quite a bit of explanation, but as far as possible I leave this until you see an artist. Don’t reveal their banter. They each wrote a song for the other’s wedding. Lizzie was first with I Do (Song From Catherine’s Wedding), accompanying herself on piano. Catherine had responded for Lizzie’s later wedding with More Than You Could Know (Song for Lizzie’s Wedding). If they get these onto an album, they are onto a winner for future wedding reception choices.
When It’s Not Me brought guitar back for the Cartwheels song about small town gossip. Probably not as good as Bobby Charles and Rick Danko’s Small Town Talk or The Band’s The Rumor, but then what is?
Comeback Baby is a fine classic pop song and was a virtual single and was on an EP, From Our Back Pocket. A touch of girl group? A touch of Roy Orbison? The semi-spoken narrative rocks. I hadn’t heard it. it’s on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music. I will download it from iTunes … and pay. I don’t do streaming. I thought it one of the strongest songs of the evening.
This is Gonna Hurt is from the same EP / virtual single, whatever, and so is Miles Don’t Matter, so three good recent ones in a row.
Proof is back to Cartwheels.
They talked about how they got to Nashville for their first album From Where We Stand. A Nashville session singer taught music at their school and she made the connection. That’s a mighty connection. The three song set from the album followed and demonstrates how they got that country and western tag. So it was Way Back When about the old days, their mum in the 70s. Then Footnotes, and the raucous Push For The Stride. They still hadn’t stood up all evening, but the audience were definitely warming up. Push For The Stride must be a guaranteed pleaser for them.
Next to You is from 2023’s Music In The Madness album. It’s one that makes me think Fleetwood Mac, but that the propulsion. Oddly for the most recent full album only two tracks got played, this and the encore.
OK, here were are. Maybe the two best-known songs. First Cartwheels, then the one that opened that album, Carry You Home. As soon as you hear those two, you know it’s the end. Great songs. The audience knew them. Clapping along.
The encore was Love Does.
I guess at some point in the future we’ll see a Cartwheels whole album tour. I hope I’m around … I want to hear Guilty Flowers and Material live one day.
It was a fine performance. The mild downside, is that their voices are so distinctive and the instrumentation is limited that there were a couple of points where we both felt like a change of style. Maybe give that marvellous guitarist a solo piece? Overall, highly recommended,
SUPPORT SET
Beth Rowley – vocal, guitar, harmonica
Tom Kuras- acoustic guitar
SETLIST
Climbing High Mountains
This Train is Bound For Glory
Wade in The Water
Nobody’s Fault But Mine
Take Me Home Precious Lord
Only One Cloud
She is unexpected. A gospel solo singer. She starts out bravely singing Climbing High Mountains totally unaccompanied. Aretha Franklin did that song.
She picks up guitar for This Train (Is Bound or Glory) but she seemed fairly rudimentary on the instrument, a clue being looking at the frets for chord changes.
Her guitarist, Tom Kuras, comes on for the third song Wade in The Water. He’s vey good, I’d suggest bringing him on for the second song too.
The fourth is Nobody’s Fault But Mine, and she mentions that Nina Simone and Led Zeppelin recorded it. Being a rock snob, I’d’ve credited Blind Willie Johnson from 1927 myself (or Ry Cooder or The Grateful Dead). Led Zep changed the words radically.
Take Me Home Precious Lord … Mahalia Jackson or Elvis Presley?
Only One Cloud is an original, and she should have said so, because it’s a strong song. She used harmonica.
The plus side was that the interval line to buy her CDs was long, lasted the whole interval. I’d intended to go back at the end, but she’d left. Most of the set is on Pale Jewel Volume II.
She chatted a lot and explained that she’d taken a few years off to have a family and we were all on our side on her return. She needs a shot of stage confidence, and hopefully these larger ‘non-club’ shows will give it. One piece of unwanted advice from me. It’s a support. It’s just six songs. Dithering about over changing the set list in the middle while glancing at a small notebook is not what you do. Your guitar player needs to know. Also, she had two harmonicas and spent time working out which was which (they are in set keys). You put a piece of florescent tape on one of them. We were doing that in 1964.
OVERALL: Concession stands
They were very busy. They were charging £25 for signed LPs and £15 for CDs. (And £10 for Beth Rowley’s short “EP” CDs.) The Beth Rowley Gota Fria CD was a bargain. It’s £19 on Amazon. The Pale Jewel CDs are download only. A fair price for the artefact.
The Ward Thomas LP was a fair price. Music in the Madness on CD was fair – 17p cheaper than amazon. At £15 the back catalogue CDs were over-priced. I’d checked earlier in the day when I thought I’d lost Invitation. £5.99. Cartwheels £4.99. From Where We Stand £6.96. Restless Minds £3.99 (I’ve just bought it). I don’t know when artists will suss this. People check on their phones. Amazon is taking a massive chunk of a sale. If you are selling direct, you can afford to price back catalogue CDs at £10 and still make far more than from an amazon sale.
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