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Live Review – TheTrembling Bells with Bonnie Prince Billy at The Queens Hall, Edinburgh

The Queens Hall staged the opening night of The Trembling Bells with Bonnie Prince Billy (Will Oldham) Tour to promote the collaborative album ‘The Marble Downs’. The opener “I Made A Date (With An Open Vein)” builds to a crescendo of drums, guitar and vocal harmonies that leads to a set comprising originals and covers including a wonderful version of Scott Walker’s “Duchess” which drummer and songwriter Alex Neilson dedicates to his mother for her 60th birthday.

Lavinia Blackwall’s commanding voice acts as a perfect foil to Bonnie Prince Billy’s gentler tones and as with all great male/female duets there is a sensual tension to their duelling. The humorous bawdy traditional song “My Husbands Got No Courage In Him” is one of the highlights of the set as is the Gram Parsons inspired Every Time I Close My Eyes (We’re Back There).

There was a rawness about the performance and none of the songs felt over-rehearsed which made the show loose and enjoyable. The band also were able, perhaps because of the collaborative aspect of the performance, to branch out into areas probably not associated with the traditional folk reflection of The Tremblimg Bells such as country and western, psych-rock and murder balladry…..

Live Review – Bonnie Prince Billy at the Old Fruit Market, Glasgow

“Here’s a song about enduring love.  It’s called Will”  Just one of many examples of Will Oldham’s humour which we experience tonight.  When he comments that earlier at dinner he became frustrated with himself for not noticing wine dripping from his moustache onto his $80 shirt, a female from the audience offers to ‘suck’ it clean whereupon Oldham drops to his knees begging “please, please”.

Oldham’s songs are often poetic, playful, sometimes violent and filthy but all seem tinged with a sense of the wonder of life.  It’s been five years since Oldham’s alter ego Bonnie Prince Billy last played in Glasgow and such is his prolific songwriting, producing an album every year since then that he performs for nearly an hour before he plays any songs from his latest album, Wolfroy Goes to Town.

There is no rhythm section present tonight and this allows the harmonies of the group to soar and wrap you up in the heartfelt emotion that Oldham is consistently able to convey with his songs.  Indeed songs such as I See a Darkness and That’s What Our Love Is are like hymns, they become gospels.

Oldham relishes collaboration such as his 2005 Superwolf project with Matt Sweeney, which was the last time I saw him play in one of his other guises.  He will be collaboraitng again soon with Trembling Bells  their opening night at The Queens Hall in Edinburgh in April.  More songs about enduring love then.