The Woodwards & Lucky Fonz III at The Adelphi Hotel Leeds – 02/12/11 by Helen
The venue for the first date of The Woodwards and Lucky Fonz III UK tour is the Adelphi – a gorgeous little pub in the south of Leeds’ city centre. It was pouring with rain, yet the pub was still packed. A small stage was set up in the corner and sofas, tables and chairs were dotted about the room giving the gig a very relaxed feeling on the wet Saturday afternoon.
Floppy hair, skinny jeans and pointy shoes: just Lucky and his guitar. It was Lucky Fonz III’s first time touring the UK and his first ever show in England. As soon as he got on stage he told us he was very excited, and so in order to balance out his excitement he had to begin with a depressing song – the story of how his grandmother taught him how to smoke, aged 7.
His husky, yet powerful voice with a hint of a Dutch accent contrasts delightfully with his delicate guitar accompaniment. His songs are beautifully simple and tell amusing stories, particularly ‘Once I Was A Lady’ which he told us is apparently a true story.
Lucky had a positive and humble attitude, greatly thanking the audience between songs. I particularly enjoyed the song ‘Lowlands’, a song about the Scottish lowlands, as it really showed off Lucky’s strong voice and range. ‘My Daughter’ was another highlight with the added feature of his harmonica.
Up next were The Woodwards consisting of Peter Schuyff and Stevie Guy. It’s not easy to pinpoint a particular genre for them, folk is the obvious one, but then that can be quite a broad term. Just don’t go classifying The Woodwards as “folk-noir” – Peter hates it. However, he gets compared to Tom Waits all the time and as he said so himself: “that’s kind of an obvious comparison”. Another similarity is Leonard Cohen, especially when he had a chorus of three girls singing with him. “But,” he told me, “that’s only a comparison I use when I want to save time and people are curious about what I do.” The Woodwards have certainly got something special that can only be illustrated by their live performance.
Over the course of one album and two EPs the line up has changed each time, but this combination of Peter Schuyff’s voice and guitar alongside Stevie Guy’s beautiful vocals, in my opinion, seems to work best.
Peter’s influences are mainly writers like Walt Whitman, but musically there’s Al Green and also the singer Frazey Ford from the Canadian band The Be Good Tanyas. When I asked who he compares himself to musically, Peter responded that he would like to compare himself to Aidan Moffat from a band called Arab Strap. “He’s a brilliant poet and the way he applies himself to music is something that I really admire and I see myself in him.”
Peter tops and tails his set with songs accompanied by his ukulele. He started by strumming to himself but then captured the audience’s attention, causing the room to fall to a hushed silence. The ukulele’s high pitched tone and jazzy lilt along with his deep voice acts as a perfect introductory number.
He was then joined on stage by Stevie Guy; her soft vocals soared over Peter’s darker tones. Their voices fitted together flawlessly, each emphasising the other. Despite living in separate countries and not having rehearsed in 3 months their set is delightful. Peter’s deep poetic lyrics tell of years of stories from New York, there’s so much history behind them and Stevie helps bring these stories to life.
The dark, melancholy tones of ‘DOPE’ was one of my favourites from their performance and is the one song that features on all three CDs. Other highlights were ‘Ursula Peterson’ that features the word “up” numerous times (who knew there were so many phrases that used that little word?). Another was the title track of the first EP ‘Burn Everything’ which Peter told us is a collage of his favourite songs and poems that repeat a word three times.
I loved how there was no rush to the set, the atmosphere was lovely and relaxed and there was a beautiful feel to their music. I could listen to The Woodwards for hours. Finally five-piece band The Woven Project were bursting off the small stage as theyfinished the evening with their folky, acoustic set.
“Dirty little urban songs”, as Peter calls them. After listening to his music or seeing The Woodwards play Peter told me he “would like people to go away being a bit inspired to take relish in their language.”
The Woodwards: http://www.thewoodwards.nl/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Woodwards/172183212814838
For Peter’s artwork visit: www.schuyff.com