Port Isaac's Fisherman's Friends
Colston Hall, Bristol 25 Nov 2011
Fisherman's Friends do what Fisherman's Friends
do very well indeed. But that really is all they do. The trouble with seeing
them headlining their own gig (as opposed to doing a set at a festival) is that
you get twice as much Fisherman's Friends for your money. And it turns out that
there are only so many rollicking bollocking buggering shuggering however it
goes songs of the high sea a man can cope with in a single sitting.
There are some attempts to change the tempo. In
between the shanties, we get a medley of Methodist hymns. From Sankey's Hymnal:
"We used to find that name funny when we were kids....we still do,
apparently." The trouble is that what Fisherman's Friend's are doing is
basically chapel singing (er, "a capella") and the chosen song is a
spiritual with a nautical theme. (“Row for shore sailor, row for the shore, heed
not the rolling waves but lean to the oar”) So it
isn't really that much of a change of tempo. "The Cornish Methodists were like
the Taliban, only without the sense of bonhomie and good fun".
When you go to hear the same bands more than
once, you naturally expect to hear the same jokes as well as the same songs. (I
probably know Robin Williamson’s story about putting his harp in the lift as well as
he does.) But Jon's patter has become an elephants graveyard of double
entendre. "We asked if we could appear on the Parkinson show. He wrote
back and said 'No, you can't.' I didn't know he was dyslexic." Despite
being famous, they haven't acquired any groupies. There are application forms
for us to fill out in the foyer "And for the ladies as well." To the
least tall member of the group: "Are you happy?" "Not really,
no." "Well, which one are you then?" And, every time someone
coughs "Do you want to suck a Fisherman's Friend?....That joke always
leaves a nasty taste in the mouth."
The role call at the end of the show pointedly
tells us what the boys day jobs are – fisherman, ex-fisherman, ship builder,
potter... Now, I don't know what songs Cornish Fishermen
really sing at work, but I'm guessing not ones about South Australia or Mexico.
I imagine they listen to Radio 1. These are songs from the British and American
navies that have become standards. There aren’t
about fishing. There is a song about whaling, but it's a modern thing showing
sympathy for the poor ickle cephalapod cetacean. (“Last night I heard the cry of my companion /
the roar of the harpoon gun and then I was alone.") Any melancholy mood is
immediately dispersed by Jon: "It's all right, it's only a big lump of
sushi.” His schtick is to apologise that some of the
songs are too depressing. The sad ones are actually welcome relief from all the
rollicking and bollocking.
Jackie "Jim's Brother" Oates opened
with a nice trad folkie set, including a Cornish version of the sublime The
Trees They Grow So High – "my pretty lad is young, but he's
growing". It sounded exactly as if someone had heard "my bonny
boy" once and reproduced it from memory, not quite getting the point. You
can really imagine some fishwives singing it while working on their lad's nets.
There is more authenticity here than in any number of roared out choruses of
What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? The Captain's Daughter was a whip:
"Give him a taste of the Captain's daughter." Not "Throw him
into bed with the Captain's Daughter". (Have you seen the Captain's
daughter? Ha-ha.)
But anything they lack in authenticity the make
up for in volume. When they get going on Bound For South Australia or A
Sailor's Ain’t A Sailor Ain’t
A Sailor Any More it would be churlish not to say "Arrr" and join in
the actions. ("Don't haul up the rope, don't climb up the mast, if you see a sailing ship it might be your
last.") Or Pay Me My Money Down. Or Woo Woo Bully In the Alley. Or the
penultimate encore, Sloop John B. ("The Beach Boys sang this, and now we've
immortalized it.") Last time, I mentioned that Les Barker once raised a
question which has always troubled me: what happened to the Sloop John A? But
it now occurs to me that this was Nassau, and it was probably actually the
Sloop Jumbie. A Jumbie being a corpse that a witch doctor has brought to life.
Prone to dancing back to back belly to belly. Serves you right for paying
attention to me.
There is a big Cornish Flag over the stage. They
play up to Cornish stereotypes straight out of central casting. It's not
surprising they ended up advertising fish fingers: Cleave’s
stage persona is basically Captain Bird’s Eye. So, they are staunch local people who
want us to laugh with them at they grokles and turrists and Americans who visit
their village in the summer. "Tin-taggle? Can you imagine King Arthur riding out of Tin-taggle?
That's where a fairy would come from. It's Tin-taj-il" "Yes dear. But
put the fish knife down." (A pedant would point out that King Arthur
didn't ride out of Tintagil, although in the most militantly Welsh version of
the story, he was conceived there, so I have.)
On the other hand, they play up to all the nasty jokes that the rest of
England makes about Wesk Untry. Port Isaac has just been made a world heritage
site for inbreeding. High six!
This makes their rendering of Cousin Jack a
little uncomfortable. Steve' Knightley's a serious singer; he's allowed to drag
you through dark places in his songs. Fisherman's Friends are a novelty band,
and arguably shouldn’t. Steve imagines a 19th century emigre seeing modern Cornwall and
despairing "I see the English....living on our house...I see the
Spanish....fishing in our seas...." (Although he often now changes it to
"these seas".) The Fishyfriends put it back into the main singalong verse
"the English they live in our houses / the Spanish they fish in our
seas". If anyone is allowed to be annoyed about international fishing
regulations, its a working fishermen. Peter Roe, the oldest member of the group
(he's 78, as we keep being told) does a song he wrote himself about how the
fishing trade ain't what it used to be due to European regulations. It's no
Tiny Fish For Japan, but it comes from the heart. But in the context of
rollicking, bollocking, swuggering and buggering, it feels a little
uncomfortable for Cleave to put his hand over his heart when he get to
"the Spanish they fish in our seas" and very uncomfortable for another member of
the group to make what seems to be a clenched fist salute.
I assume you all all saw Jamie Oliver doing his
chirpy cockney thing from St Pauls last week? The lady with the stew sells me my
coffee in the library canteen, so she does, and sometimes banana cake as well.
There's only so many times you can say "vibrant" and
"multicultural" in one cookery show; but I did think he was spot on.
Saffron doesn’t grow anywhere in England. Think of a famous
story set in Cornwall: Jamaica Inn. Think of a typical Jamaican street food:
patties. St Piran's flag seems to be an invention of 19th century Cornish
language revivalists.
There comes a point where irony gives out.
After seventeen or eighteen jokes, you start to think "That's not part of
a jolly jack tar persona; that's simply a dirty joke." And then you start
asking yourself to what extent the audience are in on the irony. They are
certainly enthusiastic. A lot of them stood up at the end. I didn't stand up
for Chris Wood. I'm certainly not going to stand up for what is basically a
quite good male voice choir.
As a 45 minute festival band, there's no-one to
touch them.