Flook!
Well I wasn’t really expecting to be able to go, but seeing as how I was in Leicester last night anyway, I thought I’d find out if there were still tickets left for the Flook concert last night at the Y Theatre — which is actually just the theatre at the YMCA, but it’s serviceable if in need of some renovations and more leg room.
Sure, said the woman at the box office, but there are only tickets for the balcony. So quickly fed and watered, I proceeded to the theatre, bought my ticket and had one of the best evenings I’ve had for a long time. The members of Flook are extremely talented musicians, entertaining between tunes and clearly enjoying themselves tremendously as they play. I found it particularly interesting to watch how Brian and Sarah, the two woodwind players, handled the extremely fast pacing of most of their music. Breathing at the right time on that sort of instrument is something of a necessity (as it is with the recorder), and they obviously learn breath points when they learn the music itself. Since this is what my recorder teacher’s been saying to me for ages, I shouldn’t be at all surprised.
There was no new music, except for people who hadn’t yet bought the new album (I noticed many copies of that being purchased during the interval), but the live versions differ from the album versions by varying degrees — partly due to improvisation. Whether this is done to cover up mistakes, on a whim or just because they play some of their older music differently now I don’t know, but I suspect it’s a combination of the three. Keeps things interesting.
Things that will particularly stick in my mind are Sarah’s habit of standing on one leg while playing the flute (when she doesn’t stand on one leg, the formerly free leg is usually stamping time), Brian’s extravagent style on all his instruments (variously-pitched tin whistles and a few different keyless transverse flutes), but most of all John-Joe’s extravagant bodhran solo in the middle of The Tortoise and the Hare. That track is made up of two tunes, and between them the other group members walked off stage and left him alone, where he proceeded to demonstrate that a bodhran is quite a bit more than just something you hit to make a thumping noise. Very, very impressive, and they were at least twenty bars into the tune about hares before we stopped applauding him.
The only disappointment is that there was only one encore. Well worth seeing!