KEN COCKBURN assesses the art of Ian Hamilton Finlay for the experience of warfare it incited and represents
The Levellers at home
PETER MASON relishes how the setting of this rural festival brings out the best in (some) folk musicians
The Levellers play Folk by the Oak festival
The bard gives us advance notice of his upcoming medieval K-pop releases
GORDON PARSONS steps warily through the pessimistic world view of an influential US conservative
HENRY BELL takes issue with the assertion that basic income is a remedy for poverty when it doesn’t address the inbuilt inequality of capitalism
RON JACOBS welcomes an investigation of the murders of US leftist activists that tells the story of a solidarity movement in Chile
RITA DI SANTO surveys the smorgasbord of films on offer at this year’s festival
Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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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