"I Have A Feeling We're Not in Kansas Any more"

There's something powerful about this time of year. Loss, pain and renewal are never too far away from an internal dialogue that cuts across faith, belief and religion, hopefully re-emphasising something we all know and might not quite understand: that we are part of something bigger. Just how big can be a surprise.
I found out earlier this year that the excellent Red Shoes  http://www.redshoes-music.com/ were due to play at Birmingham's Symphony Hall "Folk for Free" event on the 17th of April.

And here they are sound-checking the set, looking out over Birmingham's Centenary Square. I found out on arrival that this was to be the last one in a series of Folk for Free events that have been held in the reception area.
As the reception area filled the growing audience used the upper tiers to see and hear what turned out to be heart jolting event. The sound check was better than some gigs I've attended and as it tool place old acquaintances were being renewed and people were connecting and smiling and anticipating.
The band honoured the special nature of the event, the last of its kind and I'm guessing, a casualty of what are blandly labelled as "spending cuts". They honoured it because they are exceptionally talented, unfailingly gracious and ever so "unaffected" by their talent teaming socially accessible and fun to be with. And then they play and sing.

.....and something transcendent happens. I looked around the auditorium as the band weaved a collective narrative of powerful imagery, strong emotions and music so technically well crafted it is neither the portrait or the frame of a beautiful sound picture

I watched casual observers become enthralled and felt the unmistakable "vibe" of an audience willing the band on to give them more. Unobtrusive percussion, a violin that has a breath of its own and an always "oh so appropriate" input from two skilled and gifted guitarists who work off each other seamlessly.

Applause didn't happen: it burst! The Red Shoes songs touch painful places, challenge the assumed right of the privileged to ride (sic) over the law of the land and so doing hold an engaged audience in a very special place throughout.
Their encore was a unique event: an ending not only to a great set but a great idea, that music and meeting people are one and the same thing and that this should be allowed and encouraged to happen producing a healing and renewing balm in an increasingly disjointed and fractured society. Without stretching the  Easter metaphor too far, I hope a resurrection of a great idea isn't too far away and wouldn't it be great if Red Shoes could open the next incarnation.