Thursday, May 2, 2013

Billy Bragg at the Birchmere



For a self proclaimed journal blogger, I let a lot go under the bridge undocumented. This week was particularly memorable however as we saw Billy Bragg at the Birchmere: a shared table, dinner club type of venue just outside Washington DC. We've seen many favorites there over the last 25 years.... Steeleye, Fairport, String Band, Cowboy Junkies, Bruce Cockburn, Livingston Taylor.... you get the picture.




Vegas....  are we having fun yet? 

David had been in Las Vegas a few days at the annual company/customer shindig. I include this photo in case anyone wonders why I don't go with him. He assures me they were handed these props purely for the shoot.

Anyway.... I picked him up at the airport, he recovered a little and then we hit the rush hour beltway traffic. It wasn't ideal timing but it was worth the effort. Quite a considerable cultural contrast, straight from the extraordinary glitziness of Vegas to the down to earthness of a Billy Bragg concert.... part overt Socialist political rally as we sing about Power of the Unions backed by the "anti Fascist rhythm section", part stand up comedy act as he is very funny, part tear jerker as he still throws in the occasional poignant love song just to throw you off guard. He didn't seem to have changed much since the "80s when we last saw him in Leeds.  A bit older, (he mentioned his full beard "hiding a multitude of chins")





You'd think the audience for a Billy Bragg concert would be pretty self selecting but it turned out the young couple we were sitting with were both Republicans. "I just don't agree with that" said the mild mannered, beautiful Stephanie, a Capitol Hill lobbyist from Alabama, when he talked about the British National Health System and the inability of the rest of the world to understand America's reluctance to provide universal health care for its citizens.
Proof, possibly, of the incendiary effect of such an unusually (for here) left wing tone to the evening was a little skirmish at a table near us of the "F... you" "No, F.... YOU" variety. That sort of thing just never happens normally.

This concert was one of those times I feel as if a neurosurgeon has stuck a probe into my brain and touched a little area that stimulates my Britishness as if to remind me it's my "real self". The rest of the time I feel like an American with a British accent.

After the show we joined the line for the meet and greet. We told Billy Bragg the first time we left our  daughter with a babysitter was to see him in concert. She's 30 now. You can see that we were a lot more excited than he was, but he couldn't have been nicer.


The patient smile of a seasoned after show hand shaker.


On the way home David accidentally crossed a bridge into the city. It's easily done, especially when you're jet lagged..... one false move and there's no way out of the situation, you've just got to add another 15 minutes onto your ETA back home. I snapped this picture of the Lincoln Memorial out of the car window to take my mind off it, in the interest of maintaining marital harmony.



8 comments:

  1. I remember playing some Billy Bragg to my sophmores at Sheboygan North high school, Wisconsin, back in 1985. They were astonished and amazed. I cant remember the context, but he was certainly not someone they had come across before. It sounds like a fascinating night....hope you made it home safe eventually. J.

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    1. I can imagine those high school students must have thought the world of you, Janice!

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  2. How amazing having your photo taken with Billy Bragg, well it seems amazing from where I live in rural SI New Zealand, not all that far from the South Pole! Sounds like a really good night, and the awakening of the kernel of "Britishness" inside by the proximity to Mr B B is something that I have noticed happening to me on odd occasions. In my case it might happen when listening to a cricket test, and a NZ commentator says something a bit derogatory about the English team... It's not that I am really a great follower of sport, but, when the English team is over in this part of the world there is something about them that says that they are representing me and my country! I have lived in NZ for more years than I actually lived in England, but there is a link to the place that is really deep and probably could never be removed from me. Maybe we are like migrating birds that still retain a strong homing instinct!

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    1. It's all very well being critical of your own country, but when someone else does it it's quite a different matter! We experience the reverse too when people come over to stay.... if they are critical of America we can get rather offended. Dual citizenship isn't just about passports.
      "Not all that far from the South Pole" sounds very exciting. I don't think I've ever heard anything negative about NZ in the way of cultural stereotypes come to think of it, it always looks like paradise!


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  3. "In the interests of maintaining marital harmony." LOL. I remember this one...

    I've not attended a Billy Bragg show but I adore Bruce Cockburn. have sen him three times and he is amazing.

    Your evening sounds fun. Except for the addition to the ETA.

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    1. Yes, I remember your lovely post now about Lord of the Starfields. He is wonderful isn't he. I also really like Lovers in a Dangerous Time. Some songs just quietly occupy a place in the back of your head as life goes by don't they.

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  4. i Love Billy Bragg! (seen him once in Halifax) .now....Bruce Cockburn!Would love to see him play!

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  5. Should see if your pals can entice him to Trades Club. I saw Hebden got the Times vote for Coolest place to live in Britain, after all!

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