Review: A Summer Evening With Natalie Merchant, King’s Hall, Ilkley, July 24

THE last time New York City singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant was over here, the former 10,000 Maniacs leader was playing at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall to mark the 20th anniversary of her solo debut Tigerlily.

This time she personally chose 11 intimate and historic venues for a summer, rehearsing in St Ives for five days before playing the likes of the Hebden Bridge Trades Club last Wednesday and the King’s Hall, Ilkley, on Tuesday.

“How many of you are from Ilkley”, she asked, inviting them to stand up. Six, no more, took to their feet, one explaining they were known as Olicanians. “It was a Roman fort,” one said. “What? And you still call yourself that,” said Merchant. From such moments are the golden threads of a Merchant show sown together to complement the mournful, moving songs.

And that is why her Ilkley audience assembled from Halifax, Newcastle, Rochdale, Liverpool, York, Sunderland, Cardiff, even South Africa, for an unbroken two and a half hours of Merchant, accompanied only by her partner for 20 years, acoustic guitarist Erik Della Penna.

In a break from earlier shows on a tour running from July 13 to 30, they decided to eschew a set list in favour of random picks from the song sheets gathered at their feet. Della Penna remained seated, Merchant switched between chair, with expressive hand movements, and taking to her feet, and at one point decided she needed a run of three songs standing up.

She called Motherland her new national anthem (never mentioning Trump, but the message was clear); she told tales of a Roman Catholic funeral and painting for a Ray Davies documentary; she was inspired by the surrounding moors to improvise Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, and if the magic spell was broken by a run of on-the-hoof songs on Merchant’s little red piano, the encore of What’s The Matter Here set the tears rolling.

Charles Hutchinson