"The Floating Palace" at the Barbican: featuring Martin and Eliza Carthy

One of the golden rules states that "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all". But where would we be without restaurant, book, and theatre critics? Wednesday night we went to hear a folk roots performance at the Barbican entitled "The Floating Palace". I didn't enjoy the 'performance' much, and my partner simply said, "Well, I know more about what Nu Folk is now."

Martin Carthy and gang at the Barbican

The music was reasonable; I must say that the audience was extremely enthusiastic and cheered the performers into a second encore. But it went by me, I'm afraid. Three nondescript, nice, flowing, laid-back songs began the concert; good sounds but I couldn't understand any of the lyrics (and not just because I'm not British: two of the performers were from the USA). These were followed by an American song, a Morris dance tune, and an English folk song; equally, the lyrics were near-unintelligible. Martin Carthy did his usual excellent guitar picking with interesting syncopation and driving bass, and it was nice to hear him and his daughter Eliza do a duet.

But the performance was marred by an unprofessional patter (really terrible repartée), half of which couldn't be heard because they were talking off-mike (but the front rows laughed). Also, they fiddled with their instruments a lot (and I don't mean fiddling), seemingly launched into songs hesitantly, and two of the pieces definitely didn't hang together. They joked that they had just learned some pieces, and it sounded like it. I still don't know what the reference to "floating palace" mean.

In addition to the Carthys, the mainstays were Robyn Hitchcock, KT Tunstall, Krystle Warren and Howe Gelb, with a guest performer towards the end who was inadequately introduced and said he "didn't know I was going to sing this song". So all in all, though the individual musicians were all skilled and often moving singers and players and well known in their worlds, the show didn't hang together. It was more like visiting a practice session, not a 'performance'.  At least the sound desk was on stage to the right (see photo) instead of in the middle of the audience as at the South Bank Queen Elizabeth Hall.