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| Chloe and Phil |
While festivals can be a great place to sample live bands
with their 40 minute sets, sometimes you just wish that the allotted time could
be extended. So after seeing a couple of, far too short, Hatful of Rain sets at
the last couple of Maverick Festivals, it was a pleasure to see the band find
the time and resource to undertake some headline dates around the country. The
Sussex based quartet have developed their own niche on the London and south
coast folk n’ roots circuit with a pair of impressive album cuts but this brave
venture north presents an opportunity for the band to widen their brand of harmony driven–Americana influenced
acoustic music.
Of course growing a live following outside your core area
can take time and despite a slow ticket sale start, a highly respectable
Kitchen Garden turnout soaked up this initial savouring of the Hatful’s
talents. These are centred on the golden vocals of Chloe Overton, often playing
foil to the harmony slots from Fred Gregory and Phil Jones, although the latter
two occasionally take the role of lead vocal around the iconic single mic. All
three show their adept skills on assorted string instruments ranging from bass
to banjo to mandolin to guitar, all requiring not a single bolt of power. The
energy comes from their blinding pickin’, all serenaded by the distinguished fiddle
playing of James Shenton.
With the vocals and musicianship intact, the final piece of
the jigsaw is the songs and Hatful of Rain come up trumps in this category with
free flowing melodies and sharp lyrics bringing their thoughts and observations
to life. Over the duration of this 90 minute show split across a pair of sets,
the band served up nearly 20 tunes, of which a majority are originals and a
couple of instrumentals driven by the
fiddle playing of James. These included his own composition ‘Stranger’ taken from the band’s latest
album and a French Canadian tune which the band ribbed James about him claiming
it.
The band’s latest album, THE MORNING KEY, only came out in
May and was unsurprisingly the focal point for this evening’s gig. It was particularly
pleasing to hear the two stand-out tracks deep in the second set. ‘Good Way (To Make A Bad Man Worse)’ sounded
as clear and inspiring as its album track recording while the spellbinding ‘One Promised Land’ delivered by three voices
and a fiddle was a super closing moment. As per usual a backseat album track
leaps forward on stage to live prominence and the delightful waltz ‘Cannot Be The One’, beautifully sung by
Chloe, was this evening’s wild card treasure.
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| Chloe and Phil again (sorry Fred and James) |
Hatful of Rain are a folk act shaped by a cross Atlantic
theme and are as much influenced by bluegrass as to traditional English song. ‘Hop High’ and ‘Little Sadie’ fell into the latter camp while Fred’s ‘Superman’ saw the song’s subject get a
bluegrass makeover. The whistles and hurdy gurdy may have been missing from the
evening’s finale but the rousing ‘Little
Bird’ enabled the audience to depart with a toe tapping spritely number
lingering in their ears.
The band didn’t desert their debut album totally and its
title track ‘Way Up On The Hill’
opened the second half to show the slightly haunting side to their sound. On a
lighter note, the album’s ‘Strawberry
Leaves’ is chock full of sweet appeal and ‘The Exit Song’ shows the band at their elegant best. It was hard
to fault any of the evening’s selections and the superb brickwork acoustics of
the Kitchen Garden Café reverberated once again to some majestic roots music.
One can only hope that this venture around the country
sparks a sufficient level of interest to enable Hatful of Rain to make regular
excursions from their southern base. They are far too good to be the south
coast’s best kept secret and certainly challenge those in their presence not to
be disappointed. The 40 minute sets are fine but the 90 minutes shows are a
whole lot better.
