World of Brass Gala Concert

Brighouse & Rastrick, Stavanger
Conductors: Alan Morrison, Allan Withington
The Sage
Gateshead
Saturday 15th November

For the second time in two years the Norwegians came and conquered in the North East by taking the concert scalps of the reigning Brass in Concert champion. 

However, this was one of the strangest musical conquests in history. 

Earlier in the night, Brighouse & Rastrick had oozed musical testosterone – all butch bravado, showmanship and as straight down the masculine line as a Freddie Truman delivery outside off stump to Geoffrey Boycott. 

The other hand...

Stavanger on the other hand…

The closest you could come to trying to explain what their truly inventive, witty, intelligent, surreal and ever so slightly camp second half concert was like was to try and think of it as a Norwegian musical version of Brokeback Mountain meets the Phantom Raspberry Blower of old London Town. 

This was the most camped up musical tale of alleged ‘batting for the other side’ as Freddie Truman would surely have called it, which has surely ever been performed on a brass band concert stage.

It was a Victorian ménage a trios of Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar and good Queen Vic herself, with cameo roles for Louis Armstrong and Dr William Henry Monk thrown in for good measure. The Two Ronnies couldn’t have written, or performed a better script, and it couldn’t have been more explicit in its subtext even if the solo cornet part had been played by Graham Norton. 

Triumphant hoot

It was a triumphant hoot however, and by the time Stavanger had been warmly clapped off stage after delivering their third encore of the night (all three of which were crafty pre contest run outs for their programme the next day – clever thinking that), the vast majority of the audience thought so too.

As subject matter goes it wasn’t that risky territory to explore (have gander at most opera plots) – although the programme notes should have given even the most ardent Daily Mail reader a clue of what to expect.

Perhaps old Victoria wouldn’t have been amused, but given that allegedly she was up for a bit of ‘the other’ with Mr Brown, perhaps she was a bit more broadminded than you may think. 

Stavanger big style

Stavanger went for it big style – and after some initial shuffling of feet during the opening few items of the continuous programme, the audience became increasingly engrossed in both the playing (which was uniformally excellent from everyone) and the rather surreal unfolding comedic storyline.

Some of the humour was a little lost in translation so to speak but it didn’t take a brain surgeon to work out what it was all about.

There was some delightful playing on show too - from a quite sublime ‘Nimrod’ and thrilling ‘Holberg Suite’ finale to a superbly suave trombone solo in ‘What a Wonderful World’ that featured local lad Neil Gaille on liquid form. Allan Withington was certainly enjoying himself.

Individual contributions

Add to that some outstanding individual contributions from Nigel Fielding on soprano, Ingrid Rosenburg on bass trombone and an exceptional kit player, and by the end of the night the audience had been well and truly won over to such an extent most would have gone out and started buying the Village People’s Greatest Hits.

Brighouse

Brighouse on the other hand did what they had to do and no more – a rehash of items from their past two winning programmes here, with the addition of two well played solo items from Gary McPhee and John Lee.

It was OK stuff – absolutely familiar, a little rusty in places and to be truthful, a bit of let down. It wasn’t Brighouse on top form at all and most people we talked to after the concert aired the opinion that once again the Brits hadn’t really stepped up to the mark here.

With a possible contesting hat trick on their minds you can forgive Brighouse for not coming out all guns blazing, but perhaps a bit more thought could have gone into it.

As for Stavanger though…  Brilliant. All that was needed was Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams and we could have had the first musical version of ‘Carry on Camping’ – and yes – that is a double entendre…

Iwan Fox

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