Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
The Levellers at home
PETER MASON relishes how the setting of this rural festival brings out the best in (some) folk musicians
levellers
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
Folk by the Oak
Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire
SETTING and context counts for a lot when it comes to watching live music. The last time I saw The Levellers, in the incongruous surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall, they looked and sounded like a tired old rock band with their best days behind them.
Yet here, in their more natural habitat as headliners at an open-air festival, they are an entirely different prospect; energised and returned to their old selves.
Perhaps it is the nicely relaxed atmosphere in the grasslands of Hatfield House that takes them back to that solid state, but whatever the cause it is heartening to see them produce musical pyrotechnics to go with the real-life fireworks at the end.
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