You know that old saying, 'if you walk into a venue and the artist you’re there to see is lying on a snooker table, then you’re in for a good night'? Well, never has that statement been truer.


I like the 12 Bar; its red, and David Berkeley has a song called Red, so it’s the perfect union. But let’s not  stop there, chuck in a trumpet(er?, ist?), chuck in a trumpet playing man (a trumpet playing man, may I just add, who has played with the likes of the Wu Tang Clan. Oooh yes, hippidy hop don’t stop) and you are promised, no less than, a night of classic rock and roll debauchery and general mayhem. Otherwise known as; delicacy.

David Berkeley’s voice hovers somewhere between the traditional Americana (a bit of a twang) folk song and the gentle, almost a whisper but not quite a whisper yet delicate like a whisper, lullaby and it settles quite nicely there. He has an incredibly rich tone that masterminds a turn of phrase into more than just a melody, but a story he’s trying to tell. Each word, of each line, of each bar of every song is meticulously thought out and delivered with the precision and intent of  a great deal of feeling. Even if the majority of the songs are about, in his own words, ‘people I have slept with.’

The wit of the story teller rolls along quite nicely with the rambling guitar and the trumpet echoing alongside (the two complement each other quite beautifully I must say, there is something rather soothing about the long notes of the trumpet against the racing rhythms of a good ol’ ..strum). Jefferson is a triumph. It becomes almost military with the trumpets rolling drills as if calling for the changing of the guard and yet, it is sweet and delicate and actually a little sad, but not in that ‘depressing sad song’ kinda way, more in a ‘awww. Shhh. mmm’ kinda way.

The  Old Milwaukee road, you’re ‘”first and last chance to dance” got feet taping, heads nodding and ‘I’m tapping my knee with my hand (knee clapping?) in time with the music’-ing. Y’know, those traditional acknowledgements of ‘I feel the rhythm’ that culminate in polite gestures of time keeping because no one wants to be the first one to actually move; a sure sign that something’s gone down well with the crowd. Firesign, is forever faultless. Its so gentle it makes the silence seem loud. But there were, for me, two moments that stood out beyond all the rest. The first: Blood and Wine, honestly, David Berkeley has better songs, better written songs, more interesting melodies and better lyrics but there was something in the few minutes it took to get from one end(the beginning) to the other (the end) that gave me... that feeling.

The feeling of  a deep breath, like getting home from a long day at work and a packed tube journey, sitting down in your most comfortable chair and kicking of your shoes and just feeling that sigh of relief stretch across your body. Ahhhh. Maybe it was in the half spoken/ half sung just above a whisper deliverance or maybe it was in the ease of melody or maybe it was the tiny room with its red lights and eager little crowd that just gave it... space, to breathe. The second, and rather daring, was the closing medley of Chicago, Death Cab For Cutie’s I will Follow and Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall. It is always a risk to start bringing out the covers, more so at the end of the night because if you balls it up then you leave the audience to go home with the thought ‘he just ruined my favourite song’. It’s more of a risk when you’re playing with songs that are, without doubt, the favourite song of half the people there. It’s just common sense to be careful with Dylan, but there was not a rocky moment in it. The two covers slipped nicely beside Berkeley’s Chicago with seamless precision, his delicate turn of phrase delivered each line we all know so well with just the right amount of revision that it was still ‘our favourite song’ but as if we hadn’t quite heard it before. Charming. As a friend of mine said ‘mate, I’ll take him to go’ 

So my search for the perfect venue continues and I must say there was one thing that struck me when I entered the 12 bar, Denmark Street and that was, quite simply: this place is all about the music. And that is rather hard to come by these days.

Posted In Live Reviews, Jun 25 2009. Words - Rebecca