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@ the Riverside Festival, Nottingham 3.8.02 (review © Jon Horne 2002) from Maverick magazine Occasionally, substance wins out over marketing strategies. From their publicity, you might think that the Arlenes were a joke - an urban English parody of a country-and-western duo, with a cornball romantic biography accompanied by photographs of the pair of them dressed like trailer-trash on their way to the wrestling. It must have seemed an amusing idea to book them for the Riverside Festival - a funfair with live music, held in a swampy no-man's land between the richest and poorest suburbs of Nottingham - rather as if they were playing the Alabama State Fair. In reality, on-stage in T-shirts and trainers rather than their silly rodeo outfits, and augmented by fine, dependable musicians, the Arlenes are a classy, entertaining country-rock group. Old-fashioned (four men who do all the playing and writing, and a woman who just sings along), and too modest to aspire to Gram 'n' Emmylou levels of greatness, they are nonetheless too talented to write off as just another pub band (and far too competent musically to be lumped in with the alt.country crowd: the Arlenes are not the Handsome Family). Stephanie Arlene and her husband 'Big Steve' (does he honestly think that's funny?) are perfectly-matched harmony singers, easily negotiating straightforward country thirds and occasional jazzy key-changes (and the sometimes awkward scansion of Big Steve's lyrics), despite failing monitors and intrusive background noise from fairground rides, steam-organs, and twelve-year-olds sloshed on Special Brew. Behind them, guitarist Al Christie and drummer Paul Witt are precise and imaginative, effectively projecting Big Steve's cheerless songs out to an audience which badly needed winning-over. In addition, the Arlenes have a little star in bassist Pat McGarvey. A melodic player and a useful extra singer, McGarvey is a born front-man who chooses to stop in the background: his presence in any band (and he is in a few - notably Sid Griffin's Coal Porters and Western Electric) makes them worth a listen. The Arlenes betray their open-mic night origins every time Big Steve opens his mouth to give a shy, rambling song introduction, loaded with excuses about the sound quality or how unrehearsed a song happens to be, and every time Stephanie Arlene nervously attempts to dance and then thinks better of it. These people have been playing together for a few years now; it's about time they realised how good their group is. Explaining each song before you play it is fine in front of your own crowd on an Americana club-night, but a mainstream audience doesn't care who or what inspired a particular ditty. The crowd at Riverside was won over by the music - a form of music which few of their number had any interest in beforehand. The Arlenes should remember that. - - - read more rants and raves |