This is an excerpt of an article written by Tom Girard
Barely a year and a half since their first show, at the 2018 Vale Earth Fair Unplugged event, The Cor Damme Lars launched their debut album, Tangled Lies, with a show at The Mariners Inn on The Bridge.
Before they hit the stage though Dave ‘Duke’ Etherington (aka Ten Toe Hobo) kicked off proceedings with a set of blues, folk and roots style songs delivered in his own inimitable manner.
It was clear as the set went on he was more comfortable when things took a slightly more informal turn as he chatted with the audience and riffed on their suggestions but that didn’t mean the rest of his set wasn’t enjoyable.
Highlights came with his take in Ellie Brooks Mojo Hannah, Charlie Winston’s Like A Hobo and Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning 1952 (even if the latter was somewhat abridged).
Closing the set on his own song, Loose Lips Sink Ships, rounded off the set on a high as Dave managed to bring a few of the audience forward and had them singing along and nicely warmed up for the evening’s main event.
With the audience already packed to the front of what could loosely be called ‘the stage’ at The Mariners – one that the band had done a great job decorating along the local nautical theme of the album artwork — the lights went down as much as they could and an atmospheric soundscape of sea breeze and a fog horn filled the room to greet The Cor Damme Lars.
From the start the audience were into the music, despite the venue’s slightly awkward layout that makes the band almost impossible to see when there’s a busy crowd at the front as there was here.
A few technical issues did hit the band but they did a fine job working through them and largely carried on regardless.
Across the set they played their way through the whole of the new album, but it was the second half that things really picked up with the audience and band really jumping.
As it went on lead vocalist and mandolin player Gemma Honey seemed to relax into things more too, taking on the role of frontwoman more convincingly than I’ve seen previously, with both Jade Kershaw (accordion and vocals) and Sarah Van Vlymen (fiddle and vocals) backing her up well as they finished the set with a rousing Whiskey Smile.
That wasn’t all though as they were called back for three encores including a brand new song, album closer Grandmother’s Gloves and another track not on the record I think call Demon Kitty Rag which has long been a personal favourite.
Despite the couple of technical hitches the set was a very good one and seeing a band add in a little something extra with lighting effects (as much as the venue allowed) and the atmospheric extra audio played in between tracks was a very nice touch to give the whole thing that something extra as The Cor Damme Lars maiden voyage of a record set sail in fine style (to stretch a metaphor probably a little too far).
