Two Gigs Goggins

Yesterday I went to two concerts purely so that I could get to use that heading. Alliteration doesn't come cheap folks.

In the afternoon Mister F and I made our way to the Boogaloo pub in Highgate to see old favourites Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby. Not that we actually saw them. The place was rammed and from where we were I could catch the occasional glimpse of Eric's head but that was about all. Never mind. The noises they made were splendid as always.

After dropping Mister F back at the tube I mooched around a rather dull part of North London for a couple of hours before heading to the Jazz Cafe in Camden for Noura Mint Seymali. She has appeared regularly on the blog over the years but this my first time seeing her live.

Noura was in fine form throughout the near 90 minute set. For the first few songs she was seated and accompanied herself on the ardine (a 9-string harp), and very nicely too. But it was after the stool and ardine were discarded that the show really got into gear with Noura howling, growling and cajoling both the band and the audience to party harder.

The band more that did justice to her magnificent voice. The main man was Noura's husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly on twangy wah-wah guitar with bassist Ousmane Touré and drummer Matthew Tinari holding it all together. A great night. In fact, a great day (if you don't count Woodside Park).

In the audio slots we have a track from each of Noura's three albums to date "Tzenni", "Arbina" and last year's "Yenbett", all of which you can find on her Bandcamp page. I have put Eric and Amy in the videos so I can remind myself what they look like.

"El Barm" - Noura Mint Seymali

"Arbina" - Noura Mint Seymali

"Lehjibb" - Noura Mint Seymali