Arlet in Ramsgate

Sunday 11th June 2017
Ramsgate Music Hall

This was the first public Arlet gig in over a year, and it was on my birthday. And at RMH, with its celebrated acoustics and culture of listening. Sarah and I got the train to Ramsgate just in time (running, with seconds to spare), having just got back from an epic 12-15 mile birthday walk around the Sarre Penn valley with a group of a dozen lovely humans and a dog.

We had a chat with Rosie and Ben outside for a little while before they had to go in to play. Such sweet, interesting people comprise this band. Despite not having played much together for ages, they sounded as good as they ever have, from the spacey, meandering opening of "Summertimes" through to the encore. I attempted to record the set but the batteries in my Zoom H2 died just as they were morphing "Summertimes" into "Medway Services". There was a new one called "Final Sixteen" written by Aidan late last year, and both their exquisite cover of Eno's "The Big Ship" and the tour de force "Mattematix" were dedicated to me for my birthday. They'd even worked out a very Arlet-y arrangement of "Happy Birthday" which I'd have been curious to hear, but I was somewhat relieved when they shelved the idea at the last minute. The ultimate highlight was the trio (Owen, Rosie, Aidan) reworking of "Bowerhouse", particularly its never-quite-heard-anything-like-it violin/accordion interplay.

Happy birthday to me : )