Joanna Newsom at the Festival Hall

The trip to London gives me time to ponder on the recent trading lessons and get some perspective. Tomorrow I must build up a record of all the whipsaw indications from the last few weeks and analyse what could be done about them. But that is for another day - today it is all about Joanna Newsom at the Royal Festival Hall. Support for tonight was Roy Harper, tempted out of retirement for Joanna, who he describes as being "one of the most beautiful women I'm ever seen, performing some of the best music you're likely to hear on the planet". By contrast, Harper's set was somewhat patchy, it being his first show for over 3 years. He remains a truly great guitarist, but his songs and vocal delivery are somewhat of an acquired taste. His choice of material was pretty odd tonight, though the cover of "Another Day" was nice First song by Joanna is "81" performed alone on the stage, after which her eclectic band appear. Ryan Francesconi is there from the last tour, as is the drummer, whose name I can't remember. They are joined by two female violinists and a male trombone player. The sound balance for the show is really excellent and this combination of unusual instruments works very well together. There is a rather odd break for 10 minutes to re-tune her harp, but otherwise it is a fairly free-flowing show. Sadly three or four of my favourites from the new cd are not played, though there is a really nice version of "Easy". Just one song from "Ys" - "Monkey and Bear", whereas I would have most liked "Emily" or "Only Skin". As has been commented elsewhere, her voice has changed somewhat after she developed vocal-cord nodes on the last tour. I probably find the new voice to be preferable to the old, but sometimes I did find myself hoping for one of the strange vocal moments that she was noted for in the past. But overall I enjoyed the show very much. Odd to be in a crowd that seemed to be mostly women - does Joanna Newsom have a special affinity for women?