Tim Eriksen and Eliza Carthy are not an obvious fit. Apart from being the coolest-looking man in folk song, the tall, shaven-headed Eriksen from Northampton, Massachusetts, is an uncompromising performer, ethnomusicologist, Sacred Harp singing master, musical adventurer and punk-folk pioneer, who seems to play every instrument under the sun and has shared a stage with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson.
Then again, the blue-haired Carthy, also something of a visionary, has never been one to resist a challenge, or sidestep an opportunity to test herself – or her audience – and take liberties with traditional music.
United by fearlessness, the two throw themselves over the parapet from the outset – introducing themselves in courageous fashion, each taking on a demanding unaccompanied song before the hall suddenly quakes as, with heavy foot on the distortion pedal, Eriksen dons electric guitar and Carthy launches into frantic fiddle and bass drum and they explode into Buffalo. It’s a shock to the system and terrified glances in the direction of the mixing desk suggest the dive into grunge may be just a little too extreme for some of tonight’s clientele. Indeed, it’s full-blooded stuff as they work their way through Bottle, an album they bill as mixing “Americana and Anglicana”.
In front of Carthy’s mic there is what looks like a clothes rail from which dangles jewellery that adds shimmering percussion at various intervals and gets its own starring role on a mad bit of thrash, while Eriksen drops in intriguing asides such as: “I started writing this in 1988 when I was living in India …”
It’s not all extreme, however. There’s plenty of purer stuff as they hop between British and American traditions. We get some delicious banjo/fiddle interplay on Whitby Lads, Carthy defies a broken finger to pluck her fiddle on Cats & Dogs, they harmonise upliftingly on May Song, turn in a beautiful unaccompanied version of Banks of the Sweet Primroses and deliver an affecting 10,000 Miles. But with Eriksen’s take-no-prisoners voice such a potent weapon, it’s the grunge that makes the night so absorbing, and frustrating. When they seriously begin to let rip on Prodigal Son and Traveller, they may divide the audience, but the potential to create an even bigger din with a proper band kicking down doors is seriously enticing.
