Having performed their songs from and about the Great War on some it’s most notorious battlefields, and having been closely involved in remembrances and research on the soldiers and music of the time, Coope Boyes and Simpson effortlessly recreated a sense of the poignancy and pointlessness of the conflict at Heeley Institute on Sunday night.
A full house was clearly moved by the power of the stories told, and the sweetness and power of the trio’s much celebrated soaring three part harmonies. The lack of accompaniment only enhanced the stark message and the sense of gloom derived from the dark intimacy of the trenches. Laced with extracts from letters home and front line humour of the time, original songs of the day augmented by their own compositions took the audience back to a world of whistling bullets, mud filled trenches and the much celebrated Christmas truce.
In Flanders Field was a remarkable show; ultimately it gave such a strong sense of a brooding landscape that to this day holds the rusting ordnance of the conflict as well as the bodies of those lost, standing in mute witness to past trauma and present peace. A thought provoking, and pertinent use of the vehicle of the unaccompanied voice. Let’s hope that Barry, Jim and Lester come back this way soon.
