The Waterboys – support : Freddie Stevenson

The Waterboys – support : Freddie Stevenson

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The Waterboys bringen ihren „Modern Blues“ nach Deutschland

Es kommt nicht von ungefähr, dass Mike Scott und seine Waterboys die Batschkapp in Frankfurt für den Kick off ihrer Deutschlandtour gewählt haben. Immerhin begann ebendort die Live-Karriere der Waterboys, hier spielten sie am 19. Februar 1984 ihre allererste Show. Seitdem sind einige Jahre, zahlreiche Besetzungswechsel, eine langjährige Bandpause und viele großartige Songs zwischen Folk und Rock ins Land gegangen. Heutzutage verortet Scott – einzig konstantes Mitglied – die Musik der Waterboys als „Modern Blues“. So nannte er zumindest das aktuelle, in diesem Jahr erschienene Album, das Scott wie gewohnt in Bestform zeigt. „Still A Freak“ heißt zum Beispiel eine dieser Gewinnernummern, oder das großartig getextete „I Can See Elvis“, der sicher auch seinen Spaß an den Waterboys hätte. Dazu wird Mike Scott natürlich auch die gewohnten Setlist-Klassiker wie „The Whole Of The Moon“ im Gepäck haben.

28.09. Frankfurt, Batschkapp
29.09. Hamburg, Markthalle
01.10. München, Freiheiz
02.10. Berlin, Postbahnhof

Freddie Stevenson is a singularly talented British/American songwriter and guitarist who comes of age on his daring and beautiful new album THE DARKENING / THE BRIGHTENING, released by Cadiz Records on ——- 2015.

Co-produced with Waterboys‘ singer Mike Scott, THE DARKENING / THE BRIGHTENING comprises eighteen short songs audaciously arranged in two song montages. This is an album in the true sense of the word, a mosaic of luminous, original songshapes, plucked from the old air of the Scottish borders where Freddie wrote them, and inserted, like butterflies on the pages of a book, in the bytes and grooves of this remarkable record.

Freddie Stevenson’s background is as colourful as his music. He is a geneological descendant of 13th century Scottish poet Thomas The Rhymer, and Freddie’s mother, Jocelyn, was for many years one of Jim Henson’s writers and producers. As a teenager Freddie studied to be an actor at RADA in London and once, while dressed as pantomine character Buttons, shook hands with the Queen of England.

A decade ago he embarked on the life of a troubadour and moved to New York City in 2009. Along the way he crafted three brilliant-yet-mystifyingly-still-obscure albums, Body On The Line, All My Strange Companions and The City Is King, each spotlighting freddie’s gorgeous turns of melody and clever, dryly humorous lyrics.

In the fall of 2013, after an ill-starred move to the Catskills and a dramatic break-up with his girlfriend, Freddie went on tour opening for The Waterboys for three months across North America and the UK. All bridges burned behind him, tour’s end found our troubadour back at the rural Scottish home of his father with an aching heart.

But a spell in the country, as it so often does, worked its magic, and soon Freddie’s blues were alchemised into a special series of songs.

„That spring,“ he tells, „I saw a picture of a girl sitting in a hollow tree, her gold hair bathed in light. This became the beginning of The Brightening; “Home in a hollow tree / I spoke with God / we both agree you’re wonderful”. Around the same time I read about Neil Young’s Pono music player that delivers lossless sound quality. Everybody was talking about how MP3s and streaming had devalued music. But I thought: why not make music that uses the streaming format to its advantage – a longer piece that you enter like a different world and which takes you on a journey. And that became ‘The Brightening’.

Freddie played everything himself, working alone in his Scottish room, writing in the mornings, recording each afternoon, walking every day by the river. The sharp-eared among you will spot that each song on the Brightening lifts a key, creating a holistic cycle of story and song.

When The Brightening was finished, Freddie sent it to Mike Scott.

„He loved it but said, ‘it’s too short to be a record, why don’t you write another cycle called The Darkening, with the keys dropping each song?‘ So I did and a few weeks later sent him that. Mike wrote back and told me which songs he felt didn’t quite work. I got the impression, sending subsequent versions to Mike, that I was dropping a penny into a deep well. Back would come Mike’s thoughts, like the echo of the penny dropping. As we approached the end of the process his notes got more specific, pointing out a clunky rhyme here, some pitching there. I realised the majority of the time he was pointing out things I already knew, but that I just hadn’t listened to my intuition. Being encouraged to listen with such intensity has raised my game.“

Freddie’s not kidding. THE DARKENING / THE BRIGHTENING is a beautiful modern folk music statement, an entertaining, illuminating vision through the creative eyes of a gentle master; a trip into a bright, strange otherworld – and back again.