JOHN LEES' BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: LIVE AT HIGH VOLTAGE (2011)
1) Nova Lepidoptera; 2) Poor
Wages; 3) She Said; 4) Galadriel; 5) Ball And Chain; 6) Mockingbird; 7) Taking
Some Time On; 8) Medicine Man; 9) Song For Dying; 10) The Poet; 11) After The
Day; 12) Hymn.
Our saga is almost at an end — technically, it has ended, because, other than a couple
archival releases from the old days on the BBC, «Barclay James Harvest» was no
more after River Of Dreams. In its
place, through a simple budding process, two new entities were generated: «John
Lees' Barclay James Harvest» and «Barclay James Harvest featuring Les Holroyd»
— yes, the only thing better than a Barclay James Harvest are two competing Barclay James Harvests,
each of them with its own personal assembly line.
It is beyond my level of endurance to go for a
close analysis of Lees' and Holroyd's post-split careers, but just a few words
may be in order. Holroyd had always been the «lesser» part of the two, writing relatively
fewer hits and generally acting as a «sissy» counterpart to John's «toughness»
(the distinction is embedded about as firmly as the Lennon/McCartney division
line, which is to say not firmly at all, but there is a distinction) — on the other hand, he did take the drummer, Mel
Pritchard, with him, so, from an arithmetical point of view, he might have more
rights to the name of BJH than his tougher colleague. So far, «Barclay James
Harvest featuring Les Holroyd» has had only one studio album out (Revolution Days, 2002: the small bits that
I have heard confirm the predictable suspicion — mostly pathetic adult
contemporary with melodies as attractive as a bunch of squished caterpillars),
as well as a couple live ones, and I suppose they must be pretty big in
Germany, as always, and pretty small everywhere else.
The story of «John Lees' Barclay James Harvest»
is marginally more interesting, because, in order to even out the quotas, Lees
got back together with Woolly: their first effort, Nexus, released in 1999, mostly consisted of reworkings of old
classics, going all the way back to the early days, with a few new ideas thrown
in. Also featuring Craig Fletcher on bass and Kevin Whitehead on drums, the
band, from then on, mostly stuck to touring, and did that with modest success
until Woolly's suicide in December 2010, caused by mental health problems. He
was then replaced by Jez Smith.
Live
At High Voltage is a rather
typical example of several live performances that the band has released in the 21st
century. Recorded on July 23rd, 2011, at the High Voltage Festival in London
(rather than Berlin!), it was then released as a 2-CD set (which, as a «bonus
gift», included a third blank CD on
which the buyer was invited to burn some photos and a video interview from the
band's own site — is that marketing genius, or what?), with a side aim to act
as an honorary tribute to Woolly: they
even performed Woolly's own ʽBall And Chainʼ, which they did not cover onstage while
Woolly was alive.
The first thing, of course, that strikes you
about the album is that none of the
material dates past the late 1970s — and that most of the material (10 songs out of 12!) is from the band's
earliest period (1970-72). Usually, this kind of behavior is branded as
«turning into a nostalgic oldies act», but in this particular case, the aim is
altogether different: for John Lees, who had been creatively stagnating over
two decades, this is a rebirth — almost like a rejection of all that utter
crap, going back to the spring of youth, that sort of thing. Listening to the
band crank the volume up on those early tunes was fun to me, and a good reminder that there did really exist a time
when Barclay James Harvest could lay claim to some depth, creativity, and good
taste.
I mean, a Barclay James Harvest live album with
no ʽPoor Man's Moody Bluesʼ on it? No ʽLove On The Lineʼ? No ʽLoving Is Easyʼ?
No ʽTitlesʼ? Not a single Les Holroyd ballad? Most importantly, no ʽSpud-U-Likeʼ
or any traces of the band's existence
in the synth-pop era? Bring it on, even if the actual performance is far from
perfect: Lees' singing has grown craggy and cranky, the other guys, replacing
Woolly, cannot sing expressively at all, the rhythm section does not feel
particularly tight, and John seems to have lost a bit of the old «fluidity» in
his soloing, as seen best of all on the slightly clumsy phrasing in ʽMedicine
Manʼ (arthritis? or just nervous?).
But they do drag out the very first song on the
very first BJH album — a fairly good run through ʽTaking Some Time Onʼ, even if,
naturally, they cannot properly reproduce the psychedelic overdub-fest that
made the original coda so head-spinningly impressive. They do the entire ʽPoet
/ After The Dayʼ suite, with a ferocious solo at the end that quite compensates
for the imperfection of ʽMedicine Manʼ. They do lots more of that nice early
stuff. It's a pretty swell trip «down the old memory lane».
It is not that I am advocating for anyone to
rush out and look for it, or any other
«John Lees' Barclay James Harvest» record — normally, if you want to hear
ʽTaking Some Time Onʼ or ʽSong For The Dyingʼ, you should just go back to the original
source. The important thing is that this and other live records fulfill a
«redemptory» function: it is pretty much John Lees saying to us, "yes,
ladies and gentlemen, everything I did past 1979 was fairly crappy, and this here
is me trying to undo some of the wrongs I'd done». Well, it seems to be that way — I may be getting
it all wrong, but this is the interpretation that I like the most, and since
I'm a sucker for happy endings, this is just the kind of happy ending I'd been
hoping for. Therefore, all's well that ends well; thumbs up to this imperfect, but vivacious
and well-meaning live album; and here's hoping that Barclay James Harvest, for
a brief while at least, will continue to be remembered for the many beautiful
things they'd done in their early years, rather than the numerous crimes against
Taste, Queen and Country perpetrated in later ones.
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