Navaro at The Horns, Watford

Watford's top pub for live music

Review of ‘NAVARO’ at The Horns, Watford on 24 November 2008

By: KATHY DRIVER

For some strange reason I had not heard of ‘Navaro’ when I was invited to review their performance at The Horns, Watford on Monday night. I wasn’t sure what to expect although I knew it would be good as The Horns has set the benchmark for the best live music in Watford. I have to say I was delighted to find their music was of a genre I liked.

They are an acoustic folk/country trio comprising Beth Navaro on vocals and tambourine, Steve Austin on vocals and guitar and Pete White on vocals and bass. They were joined by their friends Clive Batkin on bass and Will on drums (nice drummer) and were showcasing songs from their latest album ‘Under Diamond Skies’ together with previews of some of their new songs. Visit www.navaromusic.com

From the outset I was getting a good vibe and could feel the energy projected from this band. ‘Always’ with Pete on vocal was great. Pete has a very unique and distinctive voice, which also sounded reminiscent of someone from the past. Ah yes – there is a hint of Gene Pitney - for those of you old enough to remember who he is! I would like to have heard a mandolin on this track as I think it really lends itself to this tune – I was expecting one to kick in at any moment! A mandolin would be good on some of the other tracks too.

‘Home’ was a track I absolutely loved with Beth’s haunting voice bringing to it an ethereal quality. Likewise the very emotive and melodic ‘Moonrise’ with its perfect harmonies and the texture and quality of Beth’s vocals put her somewhere between Karen Carpenter and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She is up there with the best of them!

New songs played were ‘Another Life’ and ‘A life without dreams’ both of which I liked immediately – look forward to hearing them on the next album, hopefully.

They finished off their set with the powerful and passionate ‘See I’m here’ - what a great track! The audience loved it as their rapturous applause testified.

This is a trio with original material. The talented writing of Steve and Pete produces some inspirational and meaningful songs varying from slow with lots feeling to high energy, all with good musicianship. If you like this kind of music, don’t miss them – check out their gig list and all the music events in and around Watford including The Horns, Watford, by visiting the ‘What’s On’ section of this website.

The evening’s MC as always was the ever affable and tonight rather bohemian Pete Curtis (either that or he’s run out of blades!)

PS. I arrived in time to see the performance of the talented and funny poet Paul Eccentric - he who used to front the wonderful band of the 80’s The Odd Eccentric. I saw them a couple of times in their heyday – they were phenomenal - very quirky. Catch him if you can, he’s still got that off the wall humour and is slightly more bohemian than Pete - but without the stubble!

This article was created on Tuesday, 2nd December 2008. It was last tinkered with on Wednesday, 17th December 2008.

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