As 13th October wasn’t even a cold night it was a mystery why so few ventured out for the Roots evening at Jagz in Ascot. The attentive waiting staff who did were unfortunately somewhat underemployed as the ample room upstairs was only half-full.
The friendly audience gave a warm welcome to the opening act, guitarist Rob Cross, who played acoustic stripped versions of two songs, including a fan request, from his band’s forthcoming self-titled album ‘Snow in June’.
Christine Collister arrived onstage to join Rob and as an opener gave us a full-throated version of the gospel standard ‘Wade In The Water’. Her powerful voice was put to equally good effect on other classics like ‘Summertime’ and ‘Get Happy’. As ever, a wide range of musical periods and genres was covered sublimely by this most versatile of performers. Coming back up to date, Rob used his Loopstation to echo Christine’s vocals, but did on occasion treat us to some duet singing, which I would have enjoyed hearing more of.
During the performance Christine showcased several co-written songs, including a few from her collaboration with Rob, and all were interspersed with good humoured banter by both of these natives of the Isle of Man. Christine had worked with Pam Sheyne, one of the songwriters on Christina Aguilera’s ‘Genie In A Bottle’ and gave us a rendition of their composition ‘The Big Scream’. The two songs co-written with Mike Slamer, ‘I Know How It Feels’ and ‘Skin And Bones’ were for me the highlights of the evening.
As Christine is well-known for, there were excellent covers of other prominent contemporary writers’ work – notably Guy Garvey’s ‘One Day Like This’, John Mayer’s ‘Gravity’ and Leonard Cohen’s rather too often heard ‘Hallelujah’. Christine really loves the blues – her voice is so well suited to it –and she gave us a commanding interpretation of Chris Smither’s ‘Love Me Like A Man’.
An intimate and very enjoyable evening, just a shame there were not more there to share in it. Time to spread the word further about Roots and Folking Live events to help keep quality music live!
