Whitchurch Festival

04/08/00

Rotherham (with Karnataka)

12/05/01

Mean Fiddler, London

30/06/01

Peterborough Beer Festival

25/08/01

The Mean Fiddler , London

12/01/02

Peterborough Festival

23/08/02

The Point Cardiff

17/04/04

Venue: Whitchurch Festival                 Date: 4th August 2000

Setlist:- The Night Sky; Winter Mountain; Nowhere to Hide(Close My eyes); Shenanigans; The Last Climb; Shindig; Heroes Never Die; Evergreen.

I must confess that I had slightly mixed feelings about the fact that the opening act for this year's Whitchurch festival were a band that I had never seen before, let alone heard. My concerns were mainly caused by the feeling that a live introduction to a band is not always the best way to make first contact, but any doubts or worries that I may have had quickly dissolved as Mostly Autumn took to the stage.

They normally play as an eight piece band, although at Whitchurch they were without their violinist. The music is hard to categorise but it draws strongly on both progressive and folk sources and, although some of the influences come across very obviously, the band manage to carry it off by creating a sound that is uniquely their own.

With two albums to draw material from the set was taken predominantly  from the bands first album, 'For All We Shared', with only 'Winter Mountain', 'Shindig' and 'Evergreen' from their second release 'Spirit of Autumn Past'.

The set opened with a magnificent rendition of 'The Night Sky'.  The track starts quietly and is a very moody and atmospheric piece with strong Pink Floyd influences (Wish You Were Here period) not just in terms of instrumental work but also in vocal delivery.  However, as the song develops it soon becomes apparent that there are many other influences at work here and the guitar work set really works beautifully.

In perfect contrast we were then treated to 'Winter Mountain'. With its heavy drum beat and strong guitar work it was, at times, reminiscent of John Bon Jovi's soundtrack album for the Young Guns film while, at the same time, having a heavy folk influence. I imagine the emphasis would be different with the addition of violin work but, for me, it worked perfectly as played.  I also remember being impressed with the light show during this song, with great use of strong blue front lighting with the band silouhetted from behind by yellow spot lights, extremely effective!

With 'Nowhere to Hide' we were back to a more mainstream sound, but again heavy with atmosphere and very powerful vocal work from Heather Findlay.   This was followed by 'Shenanigans' which is dominated by flute and drum work and is best described as a piece of typically Celtic influenced dance music. The band were obvioulsy having great fun playing this one and the audience responded well to the pace and tempo.

'The Last Climb' is another song that came across as having a strong Pink Floyd feel to it.  At the start there are sounds of birdsong and the mood is tranquil and easy going. Heather starts the track playing acoustic guitar and the keyboards lay down a beautiful backdrop against which the other musicians gradually build. Dominant flute work and soaring guitar parts build strongly towards the closing sections of the song and effect is heavy on emotion leaving this as one of the highlights of the set for me.

'Shindig' was another folk oriented number with a strong Irish feel. Pulsing bass rhythms and flute work are mainly in evidence at the start before the guitars burst in and pour on the power.  This was another great fun track that probably works better for the live experience.

Finishing off the set were a couple of longer tracks; 'Heroes Never Die', with it's excellent vocal harmonies and 'Evergreen' which builds in to a rock masterpiece with a superb jam between the guitars and bass.

All in all this was a most impressive showing and, like many of the audience I spoke to afterwards, I must admit I have been converted to the cause.  If you get a chance to see Mostly Autumn play live, take it - chances are you won't be disappointed.

Simon 20/08/2000

Karnataka + Mostly Autumn
Venue: HLC, Rotherham.                  Date: Sat 12th May 2001

A specially-arranged gig by the Classic Rock Society in Rotherham bringing together the two big successes of their annual polls for 1999 and 2000 meant a sellout at the Herringthorpe Leisure Centre and a great evening's entertainment.

Karnataka were on stage first and were warmly received by an audience who seemed more familiar with them than myself.

Setlist: Where The Story Ends, Crazy, Dreamer, Heaven Can Wait, I Should Have Known, Must Be The Devil, Strange Behaviour, Everything Must Change, Writing On The Wall, The Right Time, 7/8, Tell Me Why, Shine.

I knew neither of the first couple of tunes, but then they played 'Dreamer' and 'Heaven Can Wait', both of which are available for download from their website. 'Heaven Can Wait' in particular is a song that grows on you and the band performed it very well, with Heather Findlay of Mostly Autumn joining in.

The remainder of the set was well executed, several new songs being inserted in between the material from the band's last album 'The Storm'.  Rachel Jones seemed at ease with the audience, smiled and joked in between tunes and invited the audience to come and chat with them after the gig. After over an hour of music, the set ended with 'Tell Me Why', but the audience called them back to perform a final 'Shine' - complete with sax accompaniment.

While somewhat lighter than my usual listening material, they were very pleasant to listen to and certainly pleased the big crowd with a set which was well paced.

During the break between sets, the latest PO90 disk played over the PA - and very good it sounded too.

The first time I saw Mostly Autumn was at the LAII as support to Jadis.  That night they had been delayed in traffic and had having arrived late, they played a shortened acoustic show which, although pleasant, one felt that they could improve on.  Their material is a sort of folk rock, but with far more of the Celtic (Irish) influence in it - and with a dose of Pink Floyd thrown in for good measure.

A headlining, electric show in front of a supportive audience at the CRS seemed to present the ideal opportunity and indeed they began very strongly with a couple of numbers which sounded familiar. Then they played 'Evergreen', which was truly wonderful, building from a slow acoustic beginning and gradually getting louder and heavier, carried by the haunting lyrics - absolutely splendid and for me the highlight of the evening.

'Shenanigans' followed, with the band beginning to show their Celtic influences a little more and 'Dark before the Dawn', from their latest album, containing a little blast of Holst on the keyboards, both of which were fairly entertaining.

The remainder of the set seemed to display their Celtic influences much more strongly and I have to say that my interest waned somewhat.  'Spirit of Autumn Past' and several others passed pleasantly enough. Then Bryan Josh introduced a further track from the 3rd disk, for which the intro had been put together by Angela Goldthorpe and this flute-led number certainly made me prick up my ears a little.

Singer Heather Findlay then announced a surprise and launched into a cover of Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' which the majority of the crowd seemed to love - though I overheard a few dissenters mumbling about the modification of the ending to include some of the other instruments. A couple more Celtic numbers followed before a set closer of 'Shrinking Violets' during which Rachel from Karnataka helped out on vocals.

A final encore of 'Heroes Never Die' brought the gig to a pleasant conclusion before both of the evening's bands returned to the stage and took a final bow.

All in all a fine evening, with both bands performing well to a genuinely appreciative audience.

Charlie

Venue: Mean Fiddler, London.           Date: Saturday 30th June, 2001

Setlists:-
Set 1: Porcupine Rain, Nowhere to Hide, Evergreen, Witch Wood, Winter Mountain, The
Spirit Of Autumn Past 2, Heroes Never Die.
Set 2: The Night Sky, Dark Before The Dawn, Helm Deep, Shrinking Violet, Out Of The Inn, Never The Rainbow, Mother Nature.
Encores: Shenanigans, Porcupine Rain.

This was a landmark event in the short life of this Yorkshire outfit.  With only three albums behind them, it was to be occasion at which they would film their first DVD - a sizable investment for an outfit of their stature. With a venue full of supporters, bused down from their home territory for the day, they had plenty of vocal support and even though the venue wasn't sold out, from the amount of noise being made you would never have known.

The set began early as promised on the ticket - too early for this perennial latecomer, who missed the first three numbers including my favourite song 'Evergreen'. As I arrived they had just begun to play 'Witch Wood' from their third album 'The Last Bright Light'. This was followed by an excellent 'Winter Mountain', 'The Spirit of Autumn Past' and the best version I've heard yet of 'Heroes Never Die' featuring an excellent Bryan Josh guitar solo.

Since they were aiming to play a for over two hours - an exhausting business - they took a break for 10 minutes or so, which gave the film crew the opportunity to make some adjustments and to discourage the audience from taking flash photographs as this had caused some problems during the first half of the show.

The band returned, refreshed, with singer Heather Findlay wearing another outfit and with their number swelled by a trio of backing singers, who must have been hiding off-stage because I couldn't see them.  First up was 'Night Sky' - upbeat and performed with plenty of enthusiasm.
Then 'Darkness Before the Dawn', with one wag calling out during the keyboard intro requiring the band to start over again - which they managed to do without looking at all flustered. Keyboard player Iain Jennings really excelled on this tune with some nice effects and solos.

Then it was back to the more Celtic influenced material for 'Helm Deep', a lengthy workout involving flute, whistle and bhodran.  'Shrinking Violets' came complete with backing vocals from the supporting female singers, now including Rachel Jones of Karnartaka.  This is a song which is now beginning to form a centerpiece of their current set.

After this it was back to their Celtic roots for an inspired 'Out Of The Inn', complete with yet another excellent guitar solo from Bryan Josh and 'Never the Rainbow, during which Angela Goldthorpe and second guitarist Liam Davison temporarily left the stage was an uptempo, almost Fleetwood Mac-like sort of tune.  Everybody then returned for 'Mother Nature', which I personally found to be a rather dreary tune with which to end the set.

Though the clock was already showing 9:30pm, there was still time for a couple of encores including 'Shenanigans' and a further blast of 'Porcupine Rain' before the Mean Fiddler heavies moved in to shuffle the entire crowd outside before the curfew hour of 10pm.  Maybe shows should start even earlier here because on nights like this the lack of opportunity to chat with friends before leaving the venue takes away some of the fun of the show.

Charlie

Venue: Peterborough Beer Festival        Date: 25th August, 2001

The Peterborough Beer Festival is the second biggest event of its type in the UK, with over 30,000 visitors over its five days.  The bands play in the evening in a large marquee, with two large adjacent marquees housing the beer and other events.  Mostly Autumn played on the Saturday evening, coming on stage at about 7.30, with the marquee rapidly filling up, so consequently I'd imagine this was one of the biggest crowds they've played in front of.

Wisely, knowing that many people wouldn't necessarily know anything about their music, Mostly Autumn sprinkled their set with a number of well-chosen covers, giving rousing renditions of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain', Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter' and, best of all, Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' - the latter, played towards the end of the set, getting a huge roar of approval from the ever-growing crowd.

Of their original material, this was again well-chosen: upbeat instrumentals with flutes and recorders to the fore from their earlier albums mixed in with some rockier tracks (such as 'Never The Rainbow') and some slower, more emotional material, including a stunning version of 'Evergreen', with Heather Findlay putting in an excellent vocal performance. Somewhat surprisingly the original material seemed to be culled more from the band's first two albums rather than 'The Last Bright Light', but perhaps this was just because the band like to shuffle their set around from gig to gig.

The sound, for a large 'venue' was pretty good, and the band certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves on the sizable stage.  The final track, somewhat surprisingly, was the lengthy 'Heroes Never Die', however this proved to be a wise choice, with the excellent instrumental section which ends the song bringing things to an emotional climax.  The crowd roared for an encore, but schedules were running tight (A Queen tribute band were headlining) so they were left waiting for more - probably no bad thing as it increases the chance they'll go along and see the band when they're playing again.

Overall Mostly Autumn acquitted themselves very well here, winning some new fans in the process. Having seen them several times now, I've yet to see anything less than a high quality, committed performance from the band, and look forward to seeing them again soon.

Tom

Venue: The Mean Fiddler , London         Date: Sat 12th January 2001

Wow ! What an amazing gig from Mostly Autumn and Karnataka; this 'double header' from the two bands was a real treat.

Karnataka came on stage at 7pm prompt and played a 45 minute set featuring songs from their forthcoming third album as  well as existing favourites.  As I said in my last review, their new  songs sound very promising indeed with some beautifully executed instrumental sections and fine vocals from Rachel Jones. The band were joined by sax player Steve Simmons on a  few songs and a female backing vocalist / flautist whose name I didn't catch.  The most memorable highlights for me were when Heather Findlay joined them on stage for the magical 'Heaven Can Wait' and the final song 'The Journey' which was met with ecstatic approval from the crowd.

After the brief bass-led intro MA launched into a rousing version of 'Winter Mountain' thus beginning over an hour and a half of musical delight. I must admit that I only rediscovered the band last summer, but since then their music has me completely hooked.

Seeing them live for the first time was everything I had hoped for with not a dull moment in sight.  Not only are the band superb on record but they are a first rate live act too, this band don't just play their music - they entertain. Heather Findlay has become a superb front person for the band and her and Angela's visual as well as aural allure adds great dynamics to the band in general. Having women on stage seems to mean more women in the audience too, which can't be a bad thing.

The highlights? ... 'Evergreen' was superb and 'The Spirit Of Autumn Past' is such a beautiful "sing along" song.  The emotional 'Heroes Never Die' featured a huge spectacular ending with some superb drums from Jonathan.  Rachel Jones came back on stage to sing with Heather on 'Shrinking Violet', which was just tremendous. While 'Mother Nature' was saved until last, and was simply awesome.

I have to say that I find it hard to convey how wonderful this gig was, I felt the same euphoria after seeing Yes in Brighton last month. Music has that quality to say something that mere words can't ; Mostly Autumn have that quality in spades - please come back again soon guys and girls...

Steve

Venue: Peterborough Festival         Date: 23rd August, 2002

This beer fest is one of the biggest of its type in the country, with this year over 40,000 expected over its 5 days. Friday night is one of the busiest times, so it was great to see Mostly Autumn - last year a support act to a poor Queen tribute band - this year elevated to headlining act.

It was also heartening that the band eschewed the traditional beer fest music act's reliance on covers and instead played a set of entirely original material. This was fairly brave of the band as, faced with a large, "merry" and noisy audience who hadn't all heard their material, this could have backfired on them - but whilst they obviously didn't get the huge cheers they would have done had they wheeled out a Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac track, the reaction was generally very positive, as it should have been given a typically fine performance.

Set-wise, this was pretty similar to the December show I saw at the Mean Fiddler; the main difference being that there seemed to be less tracks from 'The Last Bright Light' - just 'Darkness Before Dawn', 'Never The Rainbow' and a wonderful as always 'Shrinking Violet' - and more from their first two CDs, particularly 'The Spirit Of Autumn Past'. Thinking back, this was presumably due to the fact that they have a re-recorded 'best of' set out to promote...

As usual with Mostly Autumn, the sheer quality of the whole of their back catalogue makes picking out a particular highlight difficult, although the epic 'Heroes Never Die', a long time fan favourite, was particularly well-done, coming to a fine epic climax as always. The instrumentals, such as the bouncy 'Out Of The Inn', featuring  Angela Goldthorpe's wonderful flute playing, also went down well.

Mostly Autumn use the large stage well, with Bryan Josh and bassist Andy Smith particularly animated, striking rock star poses and generally looking like they were enjoying the gig - which is always good to see.  Vocalist Heather Findlay looked as stunning as usual and her voice sounded great - although it was a little difficult to hear at times - one of the disadvantages of playing a large marquee filled with lots of drunken people chattering away, I suppose!

However, as a whole this was another fine gig (although I have yet to see Mostly Autumn play a bad one to date). It's also good to see the band gearing up for another long tour of Britain - few original modern classic/ progressive rock bands (non-covers bands) from the UK or otherwise, bother these days, and this does seem to be paying dividends for the band - hopefully things can only get bigger and better for them in the future.

Tom

Venue: The Point Cardiff                     Date: 17th April 2004

With little to no radio and TV airplay, word of mouth plays a big part in a bands fortunes in view of which the recent recommendation by a major influence must have been akin to winning the lottery.  When in a radio interview Pink Floyd's Rick Wright was asked by Johnnie Walker "what music are you currently listening to?" he replied "Mostly Autumn".

Mostly Autumn have long been hailed as the new Pink Floyd and on hearing their music, such comparisons are inevitable.  To be truthful the influence is there and it's no bad thing; their music has honesty and integrity to it, which wouldn't be possible if they were one-dimensional and soulless copyists.

You could hear the haunting atmospheres of their spiritual home, the Lake District, being brought to life with swirling keyboards, echoed guitars and a rhythm section that was both dramatic and vigorous. 

The seven-piece band came on to a smoke filled stage, to the heavy strains of 'Winter Mountain' - this guitar driven song immediately grabbed our attention and the band held it for two and half hours. They didn't allow the down sized and cramped stage set to diminish their performance.

While the band caught your eye, the music captured your heart. Outside we had typical April weather, wind and rain, but inside we were treated to the music of life and the beauty of a romantic autumn season.

With no new album to promote this tour can be seen as an introduction to the music of Mostly Autumn, treating us to pieces from the repertoire of their recorded output.

The set list was judged to perfection, playing with our senses taking us to high energetic levels with full on rock songs like 'Pure White Light' and 'Caught In The Fold' and then bringing us down to earth with the touching 'Through The Window'.

At times the music was so emotionally charged and powerful that the small venue could barely contain its forceful spirit.  Songs were introduced with stories telling the reasons for their being, lyrically they speak of human emotions like love, loss and remorse, but there is also warmth and optimism and always they are delivered with heartfelt passion and wrapped in beautiful melodies.

Founding member Bryan Josh was compelled to say with his hand on his heart "This is the first time we've played Cardiff and we didn't know how many people would turn up. But seeing you all out there. Thank you!".

The highly charged atmosphere was taken up to another level with an outstanding performance of 'Heroes Never Die', a song written by Bryan for his father, into which he puts so much effort that you wonder how he can keep performing it night after night.

Picking up on reflective Celtic influences in their music, the whistles and flutes added to by the wistful dancing of lead singer Heather Findlay, induced you into a dreamy and melancholic state.

In this day and age bands are looking for fast track to fame and fortune, but it was a pleasure to see Mostly Autumn present a sincere and impassioned performance that gave witness to their togetherness and mutual respect as musicians. They are a band that are truly at one with themselves and their audience.

Are they the new Pink Floyd? No! they are Mostly Autumn.

Rob Holmes - 18th April 2004