Ade Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds, Manchester (Sept 2009)

The night started like other folk nights; the lights were dimmed, an ethereal swirl of uilleann pipes filled the air, a three part vocal harmony broke the spell…

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won

Opening with The Clash’s I Fought The Law, The Bad Shepherds set the tone for the night. It’s folk but not as we know it. Ade Edmondson is recapturing his youth and playing the songs he grew up with, mostly punk classics, on the acoustic instruments whose sound he loves. It’s a heady combination. Viewing punk as the folk music of the 1970s, he and his band, The Bad Shepherds are on tour and they’re having a ball. By the time Tom Robinson’s Panic in the County Hall was underway there were grins all round the venue and Down In The Tube Station at Midnight brought disbelieving looks, belly laughs and a huge chorus of “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh”. By now the band were laughing too and loving it. This was turning into quite a party.

I hadn’t been quite sure what to expect and in truth the novelty value might have worn off quickly. Luckily though the sheer brilliance of the playing on stage and the slightly chaotic nature of the performance kept the magic going. Ade Edmondson, although himself a mean exponent of the “thrash mandolin”, at times looked almost embarrassed at sharing a stage with Troy Donockley (uillean pipes) and Andy Dinan (fiddle) who proceeded to rip the place up with their playing. A combination of uilleann pipes and a lovely mix of Irish and North American fiddle influences wove intricate patterns around jigs and reels throughout the evening. And all of this in the context of a punk folk outfit.

Edmondson as master of ceremonies was as irreverent and witty as you would expect. Turned out it was something of a return visit for him too, the Band on the Wall being the venue where he first earned a crust from performance doing “crap comedy three lunchtimes a week” with Rik Mayall on the empty promise of an Equity card. He and the other Shepherds are evidently in it for the fun and clearly enjoy embellishing familiar songs with folky ornamentation but retaining some punk attitude. “For those who are playing ‘guess the intro’ this one’s a right bastard!” led into Troy Donockley playing a lovely refrain on the pipes, not a traditional tune but the intro to Kraftwerk’s The Model and the fun started all over again.

Ben Shirley