Kicking off their first gig together, Madge Wildfire put on a brave face and played through an admirably well-worked set. Whilst the bands clearly have natural skill with each member playing several instruments, the music they play is firmly stuck in the clichéd tender folk genre.Starting off with acoustic-driven tracks, they exercise their vocal muscles later on a capella tracks, such as a rendition of The Beatles’ song ‘Because’.
They also toyed with audience participation, at one point getting one side of the crowd to sing on a sung version of the story of Romeo and Juliet, though ultimately these sections of the show cheapened the more serious episodes.
Madge Wildfire didn’t help the overall feeling of amateurishness when they missed notes and fell out of time on more than one occasion and in such a lo-fi venue, mistakes such as these can’t be hidden.
It’s not as if the group didn’t achieve what they set out to do; the audience were clearly enjoying the performance and the band members looked as if they were too. One particular high point was the atmospheric and moody ‘Pagan Prayer’. Whilst the band are likeable and the tracks well-sung, the music was predictable and the show was overlong, giving the whole act a stale air.
