Review: The Groanbox Boys, Milton Rooms, Malton (From Gazette & Herald)

Review: The Groanbox Boys, Milton Rooms, Malton

4:50pm Wednesday 12th May 2010

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THIS was a new experience for Malton on a Bank Holiday weekend – two Americans and a Canadian, offering an extraordinarily fresh mix of music, instruments, styles and content.

The talents of the band were there for all to see and hear – calabash/ guitar/banjo-picking, accordion, drums, harmonica and a penny whistle. The Freedom Boot (a long stick with bottle-tops aplenty down its length and a boot at its lower end) was new to most of us as a highly effective acoustic instrument. There’s a long history of this instrument in various forms in Australia, Asia, Europe and South America.

The songs were stunning – mainly observations on life rather than romance, and plenty of classic US railroad references, such as in Train Take My Pain Away and Hobo Heaven, and the stunning number opening with the lyric ‘I was born when God was a little boy’. There was also clear evidence of musical influence from other continents.

The seats were all taken, with a number of people standing/sitting on the staircase. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed it. Well done the Milton Rooms – more of this please.

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