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edfringe.com
Review by Chris Silver
The Fringe is not a showcase of talents. Rather it is like
a vast artistic stock-exchange in which those who shout
the loudest are noticed, and a very small number of lucky
investors make their fortune.
For an artist like Frank Burkitt, without naked women or
juggling racist dwarves to garner attention you can’t
help but want to scream at people in the street to come
and listen. Yet Burkitt doesn’t shout, and even on
stage he has that quality of profound modesty lacking in
so many. This is just a part of what made his Saturday night
opener at Sweet ECA so refreshing, in spite of a (relatively)
lean audience.
Most Garden Sessions fans, or even casual listeners, will
be familiar with Frank’s song writing, but to see
the man play live is to see a performer completely at one
with his material. With an elf-like grace he sways behind
the microphone inviting, but not cajoling, the audience
into the bittersweet line between fulfillment and sadness
that his music inhabits.
With Kara Filibey’s harmonies and Chris Stone’s
frenetic fiddle virtuosity on either side Frank has found
an ideal trio to realise his often challenging songs. Chris’s
remarkable technique and sensitivity provide the ideal counterpoint
to the singer’s guitar and vocal. The result are two
at once subtle and dynamic lead voices on stage, with both
fiddle and voice demonstrating a startlingly varied musical
ability. Stone’s ability to quote from a myriad of
styles, while adding to, not dominating the songs, is a
feat worthy of only the most consummate of musicians.
To draw a comparison in the time honored fashion with Frank
Burkitt’s music and others is a slightly pointless
exercise. Even the bracket “singer songwriter”
is a little to riddled with self-indulgence to apply. He
had the sadness of Nick Drake, the dapper delivery of Sinatra,
and a clutch of well-crafted songs populated with the universal
characters, aspirations and human failings that are the
timeless staple of folk music. The simplicity of Frank’s
songs are what make them so refreshing. As Woody Guthrie
once pointed out, “complicated? Any damn fool can
be complicated.” The ability to write honest, accessible
songs that have a poignancy and lasting impression on a
listener is extremely rare.
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