A rare voice

My notes on tonight wouldn't be complete without a word about Miriam Backhouse, who played the opening spot. We'd actually passed her on the stairs, her waistlength platinum hair reminding me of the very gorgeous Maggie McCathie, a mate from Melbourne.

Described in several places as a 'now-obscure' singer of the 70s, lately living in South Africa, there's a retro quality to a lot of Backhouse's singing, but very much after the fashion of a Joan Baez, or the Sandy Denny of old. And, like them, what a voice! From soaring soprano to lilting alto, rich with inflection and experience and... I want to sing like that then I have her years.

She made us laugh, too, with her solo wit that's far harder to sustain than two old men who bounce off each other's riposts; and then she made us cry, with songs about boys who died under apartheid, and the mothers who mourn them.

A fine first act, indeed, she was, for the headliners to come, but also a powerful performer in her own right. England and her music scene never ceases to amaze me.

It's this I'll miss most when we leave.