The Archlute

Having recently moved to Clifton (the poshest part of Bristol...where all the slave owners expressed their wealth by building the mansions that I can see out of my living room bay window) and having a curious nature, I decided to take a walk on the wild side last night. I went to a club. A club that plays music, but not of the kind that involves glow sticks and hot pants.

With boyfriend in tow, we entered the Bristol Music Club just at the end of our road. The programme was titled 'The Early Baroque', which I'm aware of in terms of the artistic movement, but I'm not at all familiar with the music of that era.

Taking our seats in the tired but comfortably warm auditorium, I was pleasantly surprised to see the isles filling up - bearing in mind it was a bleak and damp Tuesday evening in January.

I had a niggling apprehension that the night might be a bit old-school (fuddy-duddy) as the programme featured quite a lot of recorder, but the first trio up on stage was a man with an indistinguishable stringed instrument that nearly touched the ceiling even when he was seated, and two expression-full sopranos, one who was old enough to be my grandmother.

I scanned through the programme as the ladies belted out 17th Century songs in Italian - searching for a name to put to their accomplice's instrument - ah ha, it's an archlute!

There must have been about 20 strings to it. It looked a bit like something Errol Flynn would have played in Sherwood Forest to woo the ladies... but the neck - the neck of it looked like a traditional lute spliced with a giraffe.

To illustrate the ridiculousness of the length of the archlute, with impeccable comic timing - when the player stood up to take a bow, the top of the archlute hit one of the spotlights in the ceiling.

As well as making a crashing noise, a cloud of dust (or plaster) showered down on him. This caused a bit of a titter amongst the crowd, and the man on the stage although looking a bit embarrassed, took the accident in good humour.

He must be used to it. With such a cumbersome piece of kit.

After the interval, archlute man and his sopranos came back for a second set - we had to wait a while as he tuned up. Yet again, he had to apologize - but made it into a joke by saying that the archlute was a labour of love as he spends about 50% playing and 50% tuning.

The recorders weren't actually too bad. In fact a Sonata in F major was quite captivating, especially when it was explained that the composer had written the sonata in imitation of bird song.

Will we go back? Yes, I think so but not every week. There was a bar with a bowl of peanuts on it. An eclectic audience - all appreciative listeners, though I was definitely the youngest person there.

Maybe I'm mellowing, but I'd rather be the youngest person at an intelligent and enlightening music club than the oldest person in a flea-pit 'clubbing' club.