How many people will pull on shades and go off and watch Timothee Chalamet's pitch-perfect Dylan impersonation this week? How many will wish for a time machine to shoot them back to Cafe Wha? or The Gaslight? How many will think that they've missed out on those harmonies, on delicate folk-y loveliness, on a different way of thinking?
Those people need to see THE BROTHERS GILLESPIE. Two actual brothers with two incredible voices, one microphone and an acoustic guitar held like a shield.
Is it too crass to call them Northumberland's Simon & Garfunkel? Too ridiculous to imagine a world where Greenwich Village materialised between the Tweed and the Tyne? Is it silly to want to grab those nostalgists and say "Look! Here! Now!"?

They start with Pilgrim Song, taken from their latest album The Merciful Road, it's dusted with silver dew and exquisite harmonies. Sam Gillespie seems to sing effortlessly, the rays of a golden sun dancing with motes, waiting for his brother, James, to join him. Together they are warmth and depth, home and hearth. They are a bridge over troubled water, the sound of silence. They are astonishing.
Golden One is an ambling, rambling reverie of a song, a walk across the fells, stopping, marvelling then doubling back. It doesn't meander so much as layer beauty on top of beauty. There are spirits and a turn-of-the-year spookiness as the two voices throw a velvet cloak over the Fell wanderers. Sam picks fluid runs from his guitar and the whole thing is utterly timeless. Truly, these are songs that could be from those battered NY coffee shops or, just as easily, plucked from ancient tomes.

So many of the songs this evening speak of the lifting of a veil, of finding something beneath our battered world. There's the joyful multiculturalism of Wingrove Road, the nature-filled, greenwood-tinge of Albion and the wide-eyed evocations of Child Oisín Blessing. All of which show The Brothers Gillespie to be eternal optimists, to see all of the best bits that our wide world has to offer.
A new song, The Worlds Unfold, is pure Simon & Garfunkel, glistening with layers of luminosity. The harmonies are simply gorgeous, the song gently wrapping us between sheets of golden silk as the brothers lift more veils.
While there's melancholy and introspection across the whole set, there's joy and uplift too. The Banks of the Liffey has that timeless quality, again, but it's full of positivity, the harmonies a celebration, the tune immediate and wonderful. Two voices that fit together, that uncover loveliness.

If The Brothers Gillespie conjure New York circa ‘61 then LIZ SIMCOCK is just as timeless, just as classic (with a capital C). Remember when you found those Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton records? Remember how you thought "I wish I could have been there"? Well, Simcock is right here, right now. People will rediscover her albums in thirty years' time, lavishly compile sleeve notes and wish that they were there too. She's that good.
Her voice on The Long Haul is caramel smooth and deliciously deep, the perfect accompaniment to a song that Joan Baez would be proud of. City Girl, too, captures a universal truth in that way that only the very best songwriters can. She touches on environmental issues, on love and loss, and being stood up on the way to a party. Armed with an acoustic guitar, a brilliant voice and a sharp, songwriterly eye, Simcock is the precious stone glinting on a pebble beach.
That beautiful Mr Chalamet will encourage all manner of people into the cinemas over the next few weeks. He will, doubtless, cause a frenzy of interest in the folk music of 60 odd years ago. The thing is, there's brilliant folk music being made right now that deserves all of that Chalamet-shaped attention. The Brothers Gillespie and Liz Simcock are out there, waiting. Brilliant folk music that echoes the past but is here, now, and ready to be discovered.
Words: Gavin McNamara
Photos: Barry Savell
Photos: Barry Savell
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