A Hawk and a Hacksaw + Sons of Noel & Adrian Duke of Yorks, Brighton 16/6/09
4/5
By: Hayley Leaver
As the swells of drunken beach-goers and the inevitable hula-hooping hippies start to lessen, a lucky few amble up to Brighton's Duke of York's. With its high sloping ceilings and coma-inducing comfortable chairs, the undeniably cool and quirky cinema provides a highly suitable setting for New Mexico folksters, A Hawk and a Hacksaw.
Support comes in the form of Brighton band, Sons of Noel and Adrian, who look an unlikely bunch of high school band geeks and middle aged trumpeters. With a lead singer sounding like Johnny Flynn's long lost alcoholic brother and a softly sweet female vocalist, they manage to create a perfect harmony of rasping and soothing vocals. The almighty collective of folk troubadours are a less well-travelled Beirut, but the temperate nature of Brighton life is clearly inspiration enough for them to play an alluring and pulsating set.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw then waste no time diving straight into the cacophonous sound the band should be better known for. Lead singer Jeremy Barnes sits his accordion in his lap, grabs the audience by their ear lobes, and doesn't let go. From the first song through to the very last, AHAAH exude sheer talent, a huge capacity for creating epic, atmospheric folk and a stage presence that takes the audience from pin-drop silence to rapturous applause.
Violinist Heather Trost is everything you'd imagined you'd be during that brief violin phase as an optimistic child: faultless and utterly breath-taking, she obviously carried it on further than the 'Three Blind Mice' lesson. At several points Trost picks up a modified electric violin and plays a loose string, amplified through an attached horn, producing an unearthly yet wholly stunning flare.
The New Mexico foursome tear through a set with no hesitation - as gobsmacking live as the records suggest they would be, and as the set draws to a close it's clear that no-one's leaving without an encore. Ambling back onstage, the band don't dawdle and set off up the cinema aisle: an example of perfect timing and cohesion between the band, without amps, microphones or even stage-lighting. Having kept themselves distanced from the audience for the most part, the decibels of applause increases tenfold as AHAAH spread their members and their intensity to the back of the sold out venue.
Playing for well over an hour, the songs flow with a seamless fluidity, but it is the atmospheric climax that leaves the lasting impression. Effortlessly bringing Eastern Europe down to this tiny, seaside cinema for one evening, A Hawk and a Hacksaw certainly provided a soundtrack of Hollywood proportions.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw photo by Tom Hannan, copyright 2009. Still taken from forthcoming footage of the band performing an exclusive session on the porch of the Austin Folk House for Rockfeedback at SXSW 2009 - part of a massive redesign of Rockfeedback.com to be launched in July when all of our filmed content will start to become available for free online streaming.
Artists in this article: A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Sons Of Noel & Adrian
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