It is a night that defines winter in a north-west coastal town: dreary, bleak and blustery, one that is far from the Hollywood picture postcard vision of crisply snowy Christmas. Visibility is so poor that is hard to locate the relevant bus stop and the entrance to Lowther Gardens is unlit and easily missed. Leafy Lytham is not living up to its nickname. Lowther Pavilion is a municipal venue, functional but lacking in grandeur. It is tidy and staffed by volunteers which is simultaneously brilliant and a sorry reflection on strapped local authority funding, especially for the arts.
More like an evening at the theatre than a gig, the performance starts promptly at 7:30. Adrian McNally, the band’s producer and musical director, appears alone on stage to perform ‘In Winter’s Night’, the opening track from their new album ‘The Unthanks In Winter’, on piano and sound affects that are atmospheric and appropriate for the surroundings. The remaining seven members of the band join as they sweep through the first four songs from the album. ‘O Tannenbaum’, an ode to the Christmas tree with its evergreen nature signifying constancy. An electrifying ‘Dark December’ has Rachel and Becky Unthank virtually singing an incantation to “curse the winter” and is followed by ‘Gower Wassail’, the latter word is revealed to mean ‘good health’.
While the album has been designed for its 19 tracks to bleed into each other as a continuous piece of music, taking that approach would remove one of the delights of an Unthanks gig, the sisters’ repartee. They have an easy conversational flow, happily finishing each other sentences and enjoying the absurdities of their lives. They are at pains to explain that ‘In Winter’ is not a Christmas album but a celebration of the wider season so the audience should not fear being pressured into a night of forced jollity before chuckling at the idea of not wanting those in attendance to enjoy themselves. It is the broader scope that makes the record so appealing and one that will warrant listening beyond the narrow confines of the Christmas countdown.
While the set is drawn almost entirely from ‘In Winter’, McNally performs his instrumental version of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ which has been commissioned for Fenwick’s shop window and explains it is landmark of Newcastle city centre. Naturally, it is the melancholic original sketch for piano that is performed tonight rather than the speeded-up version that is being used at the shop.
There are changes to the running order compared with the album. ‘The Cherry Tree Carol’ which the sisters celebrate as a rare one with attitude comes earlier in the proceedings as does McNally’s moving tribute to the National Health Service, ‘Nurse Emmanuel’.
Inevitably, ‘Carol of the Birds’ and ‘Carol of the Beasts’ are paired. On the latter, Faye MacCalman’s spirited saxophone solo is a highlight of the evening. In fact, the variety of tones she provides on sax and clarinet make her a star of the night. While it is easy to focus on the sisters’ harmonies, the whole band are noteworthy. Dan Rogers’, sparing double bass notes underpin the progressions within the songs and Will Hammond’s vibraphone embellishes and enhances their atmosphere. There are a string of rich violin moments from Niopha Keegan, especially on ‘Greatham’, a song about the Mummer’s play tradition in that village on Boxing Day. The sisters joke about growing up thinking it was normal to see their father killed and then coming back to life.
As the show draws to its conclusion, Rachel’s clog dancing leads into a dazzling ‘Tar Barrel in Dale’, an a cappella song on which she conducts an audience singalong. While recent gigs for many bands have been plagued by audiences loudly talking through performances, the only sounds apart from applause coming from tonight’s crowd until now are sickly coughing and the rustling of sweet rappers. The crowd join in harmoniously with both ‘Tar Barrel’ and the encore, ‘Good Companions’, a parting song that sends us all cheerily into a still dank night.
The Unthanks are on tour until 22 December and will appear at Manchester New Century Hall on 15 December.
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
