Iain Matthews in great form at the Ramble on Tuesday
Nijmegen, Tuesday 8th september. The little room was fully packed, we couldn’t have asked for a better start of our first singer songwriter evening than with folk legend singer songwriter Iain Matthews. We met some six years ago when we both got to sing harmony on a BJ Baartmans record and it was actually barkeep Hans who suggested we should try to book “somebody like Iain Matthews”, and I thank Hans for that!
The more people I told about Iain coming the more people told me how many records (Vynil!! LP’s!!) they had of Iain. Somebody in the audience said he saw Iain in 1972 with Plainsong somewhere in Holland!!
Iain told me he would be glad to come and play. He was all excited playing solo again, something he hadn’t done in a long while. And that, as he told a captivated audience, he was making a kind of a come back after suffering from a burn out of some kind.
The Ramble on Tuesday starts with a short set by me, your host, and so I did a couple of songs to get the evening started. Somehow I chose to do a Leonard Cohen song ‘Tonight will be fine’ as covered by Teddy Thompson, yes son of Richard Thompson who once was in Fairport Convention as was Iain Matthews.
So after a short set I had the pleasure of introducing Iain Matthews, who proved to be in great form! Obviously enjoying himself as much as the audience appreciated his music and voice. Highlights for me were songs like ‘To be white’ , ‘A Wailing Goodbye’, ‘Ballad of Gruene hall’ and a cappella versions of Richard Thompson’s ‘From Galway to Graceland’ and, off course, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’, which prompted the audience to sing along.
Again the ‘Ramble on Tuesday’ proved to be an experience for both artist and audience…