Broadside Hacks

One of the real joys of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival is the sheer range and breadth of live music performances over the course of the fortnight. Where else could one start an evening listening to the most exquisite Gesualdo madrigals, then take a short walk across the city to the Adnams Spiegeltent where Broadside Hacks, an exciting ten-piece collective of young musicians, provided an hour of enthusiastically re-worked traditional folk songs.
 
To be fair, Broadside Hacks is such a new project that not even the line-up remains constant. Who plays on any night depends on the musical commitments each might already have. And yet, as well as appearing here at the N&NF, they have already this year played SXSW in Austin, Texas, as well as in Rotterdam, and at London's MOTH Club. They have summer festivals sorted, including a slot at Latitude.
 
For this evening's performance, ten musicians are arranged in a tight semi circle around the small Spiegeltent stage. There is a singer, a shruti box player, a harpist, two guitarists, a double bassist, a drummer, a saxophonist and a violinist. They begin with a version of 'Barbara Allen', a truly traditional folk ballad that even Samuel Pepys mentioned in his diary. After a fiddle tune and lively jig they deliver their version of 'Adieu, Adieu (Willow Day)', the song that The Watersons covered on their 1975 album 'For Pence and Spicy Ale'. It is also fascinating to recognise how many of the early 1970's folk bands appear to have influenced and shaped the Hacks' repertoire – their collective sound reminds so much at times of pioneering names from the past - Pentangle, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, all of whom in their day re-popularised so many traditional songs and tunes.
 
After a lively Irish reel from Scottish guitarist Sam Grassie, harpist Aga Ujma sings a beautiful Polish folk song about searching for a good husband. The sexy, yet slightly creepy 'Gently Johnny' (from the film 'The Wicker Man') is given a beautiful treatment by vocalist Rosie Alena, who also takes lead vocals on a cover of Bert Jansch's 'Backwaterside'.
 
But what sets Broadside Hacks aside from other folk collectives is the daring contemporariness of their arrangements. Introducing double bass, drums and saxophone into the ensemble might seem  sacrilegious to some, but the youthful exuberence and passion that it brings is beyond reproach. And it was all part of an evolutionary process during lockdown that saw Broadside Hacks emerge as part of an exciting alternative scene in South London.
 
The final songs for this, their Adnams Speigeltent debut, included an acoustic version of Robert Burns' 'Ae Fond Kiss' led by guitarist Sam Fryer, and a beautiful Bjork-like version of 'Willie of Winsbury' from Aga Juma.
 
Whilst the stage might have been somewhat tight on space, the lighting perhaps a little too glitzy for such a laid-back show, and the smoke machine once again an intrusive distraction, the audience tonight were treated to something rather special, listening to a fresh generation of musicians discover and revive the songwriting treasures of the past.