Jon Boden has something to sing about

So it was at the wonderfully intimate and acoustically precise Luminaire for Jon Boden and his new band, playing a near-perfect set built around his new disturbing, provocative but ultimately uplifting record Songs from the Floodplain.

Boden, who is the linchpin in the brilliant folk burlesque big band Bellowhead and half of the duo Spiers and Boden with squeezebox player John Spiers, has created an impressive and provocative cycle of songs that imagines a world forced to return to something of its folk roots after the oil has run out and an orgy of consumerism and unsustainable lifestyles has almost destroyed it.

He recorded the album all on his own but to play it live has assembled an impressive array of musicians, most of them multi-instrumentalists, putting down a guitar here to pick up a mandolin there, or swapping a squeezebox for acoustic guitar or percussion.

Boden’s confident meticulous finger picking on We Do What We Can that opened the set, as it does the record, set the tone for an accomplished and impassioned night of subtle protest songs, wit and fine musicianship.

Electric guitar, squeezebox and double bass provided the warmest sound, but cut into heavy feedback where required, while drummer Sam Sweeney also picked up a fiddle to add string texture to some songs.

Boden fronted the five-strong band with panache (in a dapper suit)- and engaged his audience between each song, even encouraging them to join in. Which they did in a way best described by one of his song’s lyrics: "Singing under their breath/songs of sadness/but singing nonetheless.".

Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings, Lewis Garland & The Kett Rebellilon
The Luminaire
Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR