The Twin Flames & Hannah Woof at Leamington Ecofest
Review
I had a very pleasant couple of hours in this afternoon's late summer sun enjoying those fine acts The Twin Flames & Hannah Woof. However I can't say that getting to do so was straight forwards & had my research skills deteriorated too much, I'd have missed them & been pretty fed up
It's quite depressing how Leamington's Ecofest event hasn't apparently learned from last year & once again, having booked excellent acts, failed to say who they were. The event social media posting merely promises vague "Music on the bandstand" alongside the equally banal & uninformative promise of unspecified "fun ‘have a go' activities". From my perspective, as previously expressed, treating them as generic entertainment isn't very respectful of the artists. From that of anyone identifying as an organiser, one would have thought that the point of booking good performers would be to increase footfall for your event in the shape of their fanbase. Even just copying standard practice and naming acts would seem a better starting point. Fortunately, I suspected that there might artists worth reporting on & so I delved into the depths of the Warwick District Council website & there, nestling amongst the information on local rubbish collection & parking policy, I eventually found the details I needed: but how many people would bother to do that?
As I don't want to sound like a stuck record, I'll move on & accentuate the positive.
I'd seen Holly & Jane at the Art in the Park event earlier in the month but here they seemed to have a bit more time & were able to play more songs: though they didn't get to demonstrate the full range of the many instruments they can bring to their Twin Flames act. It didn't I suppose matter as it's about the quality of their interpretations of songs not trying break records as multi-instrumentalists. I didn't give enough prominence before to the quality of their harmony singing & that needs putting right here.
Although they have a wide repertoire, their hearts seem to lie west of the Atlantic and much of their set today was American roots in some form or another: some familiar & approached from their idiosyncratic angle, others fresh through being unknown to us listening.
I see Hannah Woof play live all too infrequently but the rarity adds to the piquancy of when I do manage to do so. Adapting her set for a family festival, she popped a number of covers in, which she delivered in her classy fashion, but her own work is so powerful that it formed the heart of what she did in my opinion. Last year I heard her play "Rendezvous" live: my first hearing & it made a huge impression upon me: as noted in my review then & subsequently when it came out as a single in late July 2023. Therefore I was delighted when it featured today. To me the most Hannah Woof-ish of Hannah Woof songs, it remains a favourite. The EP it later became part of, ‘Heartbreak Hotel', appeared last September & to date remains her most recent release. However the good news is that she's been recording this year, a follow-up is being prepared & she treated us to a preview of one new track called "Sweet Stranger". Slightly less acerbic than "Rendezvous", nevertheless it cuts deep and after building, plunges right over an emotional precipice into some very personal ideas: like all the best of her songs, it has the power to shock within the sweetest of settings & when has Hannah ever been afraid the speak her mind? This is one of our area's finest writers & performers and deserves a much wider audience.. which I tend to say in each review. Maybe the world will start listening.
