The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

BELFAST FESTIVAL AT QUEEN’S REVIEW: Josh Ritter and the Love Canon String Band

The Empire was a beautiful setting for Josh Ritter’s performance with the Love Canon String Band. Lining up on the steps in the rain, the first people in the queue rushed to claim the balcony seats and the tables. Josh Ritter is an artist I highly recommend seeing live, one of the most noticeable aspects of his performance is his sheer happiness to be there. He struggles to conceal his grins and smiles as he sings, plays and performs. It is a pleasure to watch his laughter and excitement; it is infectious and made me equally happy to be there. Josh’s bass player Zach Hickman told us that, in fact, the Love Canon String Band is not real, it was dreamt up over 40 beers apiece, and the only times they have played before this tour was at Ritter family wedding functions!

BY FIONA MCCALLION

Josh and the boys reproduced classics from ‘Golden Age of Radio’, ‘Hello Starling’, ‘The Animal Years’ as well as treating us to material from his 2007 offering ‘The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter’. He played a few exciting new songs from his sixth studio album due out early next year- including a truly spine-tingling ballad about a man and his ship- The Annabel Lee.

All the while Josh added his unique sense of fun by telling us stories, lamenting the loss of the Glamarama sign (why did they take it away?) and with his band and the audience’s help, whistling a few choruses of his song ‘Empty Hearts’. “Can we turn all the lights off please? No one wants to see this!”

After the show he came out as promised to the porch of The Empire to meet the fans. He signed CDs, posed for photos and took the time to have a conversation with every person who waited. His patience and graciousness is touching, genuinely thanking each person for coming. To my upmost pleasure I got a lovely photograph, my CD signed and two kisses! When I told him I was studying English at Queens he asked what I was reading this year, and declared The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie his favourite book- I can’t wait to read it.

Tags: Belfast Festival at Queen's, Fiona McCallion, Gown, Josh Ritter, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Empire, The Gown

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Arts + Ents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.