Snowpoet @ Green Note

Green Note

Now that was a delightful night out. The Green Note is a lovely, intimate venue just a few yards away from Camden Town tube station. I got there early and brazenly plonked myself right at the front, a good move as the place was sold out and ended up fully packed. As it filled up I had the good fortune of the seat next to me being taken by Peter Freeman, a stalwart of the jazz scene who goes to gigs almost every night of the week. He was delightful company. Everyone in the band seemed to know him, and I overheard one of them say to him at as I left at the end that they always need to be on their game when he’s in the audience. What a wonderful way to spend your retirement.

It doesn’t get much closer to the stage than this. My table is visible in the lower part of the shot!

Full up but they kept coming

Snowpoet were brilliant from start to finish. Lauren Kinsella‘s voice, and her delicate control of it, was the centrepiece. The band played a couple of songs where Lauren was accompanied by very little, and it was mesmerising. The rest of the band were amazing, with members jumping between instruments for each part of the set, playing seamless segues between songs and letting the music build, leap and soar.

In many ways it must be more daunting to play smaller venues than larger ones, with every last piece of the performance under the microscope, and a dependency for the audience and the performers to tune in and respond to each other. Awkwardly, the stage was placed at the entrance to the room which meant that anyone needing to go to the toilet, needing to come back from the toilet, arriving late or getting bar supplies had to shuffle past in between songs. After the first number, a latecomer tripped on the guitarist’s music stand, sending the sheets flying everywhere. The band coped admirably with the pauses and flying paper, keeping the audience engaged and sustaining the vibe.

I felt like a stranger when I entered, but fully part of the room by the time it wrapped up with a wonderful encore of Love Again. I’m really looking forward to seeing Snowpoet again sometime, and hearing more from them on record again soon.

Snowpoet

Merch!