"Many a Song in my Short Time": A Review of Joshua Burnside at CQAF
Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival should be an event Belfast exalts from rooftops. It’s one of those creative ideas of artistic celebration that lets all the underlying brightness of this city to sneak out from under a cover of dissent and disappointment that so often hangs over this place. Just as the days of May begin to stretch forth, dripping a little more with sunlight, the Festival coaxes, with its interesting venues, special performances and eclectic span of mediums and genres, offering Belfast in the good light up to its populace. It feels like an underground world raising its head, showing up to a place which is steeped in talent and full to the brim with voices who have things to say and stances to take.
The outwardly humble First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street lies behind a terrace of shops. It is a beige building that stands apart, is often so easily overlooked and would be again tonight had it not been for the small crowd gathered outside. This is no Sunday evening service. The crowd eases as the entrance of the church opens up and a small group of people wearing CQAF t-shirts usher the group past the foyer and into the hardwood pews which remain a recurring joke for the evening (“you’re not meant to be comfy in church, you’re meant to sit there and think about your remorse and sins”). Church, perhaps should not be the subject of the banter and discussion that preludes a late evening gig, but, this is Belfast. Despite the jibes, Rosemary St First Presby is something of a work of art - the humble facade gives way to a circular chapel, with balconies that bent towards the curved pulpit and a front stage lit with the gentle hue of fairy lights which glow in the half-light still pouring in the windows at 8pm. Regardless of their opinion of church, the CQAF knows how to create an atmosphere in one.
Danielle Carragher, known professionally as simply DANI and this year’s CQAF Artist in Residence supports Joshua Burnside. As she introduces her songs, it becomes clear that ‘artist’ is the only title appropriate for a young woman who talks so candidly of spending time in Scotland and Indonesia and of playwriting and supporting Rufus Wainwright. Her voice is haunting and the sweetness of her writing talent comes forth in a 3 part love-song (the love of intuition, of another and of a future) which she dedicates to the memory of Lyra McKee and in her chilling acapella closing piece which spins the tale of 3 wise women from Celtic mythology. She speaks a soft “thank you”, talks of a joy to share a space with the likes of Burnside and gently jokes of being a non-Belfast artist - “I’m representing the Armagh-Monaghan folk” she grins and steps down.
A shift in the seats, an adjusting of a projector until there is a montage of moths splayed across the ceiling of the church. There is something warm about the image - the orange glow of fairy lights, the fading sky and the bugs which are drawn to light inside with a congregation resting a some altar of music.
Having followed Burnside for a little while now, it is interesting observing how he changes in his performance. Last year he supported Scotland’s King Creosote in Black Box for CQAF, standing under a lone spotlight with his lone guitar. This time he has the accompaniment of a band (complete with cello), the backdrop of an organ, the artistry of stained glass windows to hold him up and yet, when he opens his mouth, he has a voice that soars above them all. To dither in front of him in admiration would not make sense - he writes in a way that sounds like home, he sings like you know him, there is magic in his groundedness - a weaving of stories through guitar strings like threads on a loom.
Regardless of the discomfort of the seating or the dryness of the venue, the holy imagery breathes through Burnside's songs both in jest and in sincerity. It is fascinating to watch someone be so loud and quiet at the same time. Burnside’s songs speak quiet truths which he proclaims at the top of his lungs. It is a little unusual perhaps to see a sweet face, flushed pink and rosy singing about some devil man with a head full of thunder - “I’m no devil, I’m just a bad man, baby, it’s true”. He sings songs about grapes in hospitals and not being able to eat them again (Grapes), songs about a spiritual crisis (The Good Word), of drunken unrequited love (The Unrequited Kind), of growing up in Northern Ireland (Half-Homes), of self-reflection (Northern Winds) and rejecting an identity he was born into (Red and White Blues).
Despite his poetics (or maybe because of them) and his lyrics of nights haunted with robots and helicopters in forests or by drunken strangers, there is a distinct “here-ness” in his work. Perhaps it is an already-knowledge observation but, Burnside, in his music, in his voice somehow feels like County Down. There is joy in hearing your own accent in song-form or descriptions of streets you very much known spun into phrases that make you simultaneously sigh in admiration and clench a fist in envy. He humbly announces half-way through that this sold-out gig is actually the launch of his live album which he recorded in December of 2018.
There are certain gigs which will blow minds loud and thrusting. Burnside, standing in his baseball cap, in a church instead of his usual habitat of a bar is neither of these things. And this is no criticism; he plays true and well, bringing a sitting, swaying audience to the verge of a tear before inspiring a little laugh with an ironic line of lyricism (“At Charing Cross, I throw up / I feel sixteen again / When I drank ten pints and passed out, just to get close to you / A simple enough, plan but I didn’t really think it through”). Is this humorous little story-telling the thing that feels like home in him? Who is to say? Perhaps that claiming of his name on my part is a little pride in Belfast as a whole, as a place that creates good as well as its usual discontentment. Or perhaps his music just moves me? In any case, I recommend a delve into his discography.
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival runs from 2nd - 12th May 2019
https://cqaf.com/
By H.R. Gibs