"Evensong" - Mary Gauthier, St Barnabus church, Jericho, Oxford - 9 May

Those people that put on live music events in the city of Oxford never fail to come up with new and interesting places for folks to hear and experience singers and bands. "Empty Rooms Promotions" make a bit of a thing of this, having put on gigs at St Barnabus Church many times before. This however was my first visit here. Tucked away by the canal amid a maze of streets of tiny terraced houses St Barnabus was surprisingly hard to find when getting near to it, considering that we had seen the tower from afar when driving into the city.

Once located, entering the building was like moving into a different world. The sheer height and grandeur of the building with its domed ornate ceiling told me at once that were about to experience some interesting acoustics. Unlike some other Oxford venues (Friends Meeting House, Hollywell Music Room, Worcester College Chapel) that frown on the use of electric amplification, St Barnabus seemed to have no such qualms. Nor apparently were they adverse to the serving of un-blessed alcoholic beverages, which was quite a surprise. 

After a few technical issues to get the lighting in the venue to her liking, Mary Gauthier (pronounced Goh-shay) performed around a dozen songs of sensitively amplified acoustic guitar music accompanied by Italian violinist Michele Gazich. On occasions he switched from violin to electric piano, between them they amply filled the vastness of the venue with their exquisite playing and Mary's emotive words. 

Each song was introduced with explanations and tales of its conception and formation. One in particular that caught my interest was Last of the Hobo Kings which told the tale of the passing of the last living representative of a romantic past era when hobo's rode the rails between the huge freight yards before it became an imprisonable offence.

Around half the set was comprised of songs from her most recent album, Rifles & Rosary Beads. Each song on the album was written jointly with military service veterans and members of their families. These told tales of great sadness at the futility of war, the effects of which, such as the horrific suicide rate amongst vets, get brushed under the carpet. The songs however carried messages also of hope and sometimes even humour.

The evening was rounded off with her version of the Woody Guthrie song This Land is Your Land.

I was sat well back in the venue so unable to easily take the usual phone snap of my own to illustrate the gig, so here is a grab taken from Mary's Facebook the link to which is  https://www.facebook.com/marygauthiersongs/

Footnote:- Anyone happening to listen to Saturdays edition of Loose Ends on Radio 4 with Clive Anderson would have caught Mary and Michele performing Bullet Holes in the Sky from her last album. You can check it out on catch-up - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1p5vs#play