Coming down from Blackpool for the specially for the Festival on a 14 hour round trip, and with a train to catch almost upon completing his set, this was something above and beyond by Simon James.
Initially playing solo Simon, opened up with “Solitary Road” playing as a ballad for the opening verse or two before speeding up into a more high tempo affair. Dressed in a jacket with a pair of jeans, he looked quite dapper. Moving on to a song based on religion and what would happen if we just all got along “What If Heaven Wasn’t Open ?, was an engaging intriguing song that will be on his forthcoming album on Ginger Dog records. .
Joined by Ginger Dog stable mate Sam Coe ( who will be providing backing vocals for a lot of that forthcoming album, Simon moved on to“Some Day’s I Don’t Love Myself” with for some reason the sound man placing Sam’s mic about 10 foot away him which made for an odd visual experience, That aside it was a great performance, we’d had a few solo male songwriters across the weekend but this was offering something a little different.
Sam then stayed helping out on adding some powerful passionate vocals to “Something Worth Fighting For”, normally played with a band, this gave Simon something to ponder when it came to covering the solo that the band normally play, if there was any issue he certainly covered it well.
The next song was one of the first recorded for the album, “Happy Ever After” about the people in your dreams that you can’t have. It had the sound of a big song that was already ready to be worked up into a full band affair.
Simon, a traditional singer songwriter of the type that we don’t get to see too much of these days, a true storyteller.
Also on the album normally sung as a duet, “O Honey, Where Have You Been" was a tender almost folky song delivered with real feeling, The new album looks like it could be something really special, “Flower In The Rain” again saw Sam play a prominent role on backing vocals, and there were some delicate well worked lyrics. Sam left the stage leaving Simon to close the set out with “Ready To Fly”, a brooding building song complete with its own Oohing section , with Simon building to a climax,
With little time to spare, he was gone almost as soon as he had arrived but certainly made an good impression with the time spent in his company..
Sam left the stage leaving Simon to close the set out with “Ready To Fly”, a brooding building song complete with its own Oohing section , with Simon building to a clima