After his gig at the Vortex a month or so ago, playing with the talented but over-amplified Trembling Bells, it was a pleasure to see the ex-Incredible String Band virtuoso Mike Heron back in town, this time at Clerkenwell’s favourite local, the Betsey Trotwood.

The venue was much more appropriate for Mike’s music than the Dalston jazz bar, the Trotwood being a small, friendly pub with an upstairs room more intimate and cosy than some of the mighty stages which the man has graced, but with a down home atmosphere which suited the music perfectly. Mike and his band – Mike on guitar, his daughter Georgia on keyboards, Nick Pym on mandola and violin and Mike Hastings on an assortment of instruments, including guitar, penny whistle, a small lute and harmonica – played together wonderfully well, with the repertoire largely confined to the early ISB albums of the 1960s in which Mike wrote and sang some of the most touching, lyrical and evocative numbers to have been recorded in that hugely innovative decade.

Mike, as usual, was a grinning figure in perpetual motion, unable to sit or stand still, and beaming his genuinely felt pleasure at a mixed audience of String Band freaks, devoted folkies, younger musical adventurers, and people who had simply wandered in off the street. Typical of the latter were a couple of young women behind me from Wigan who had never heard of Mike but who were spellbound by the end of the evening. ‘He played Woodstock, didn’t he? ‘More than that, my dear’, I nodded sagely, my hat nearly falling off in my enthusiastic attempts to explain the magnitude of the man’s musical charisma to the charming Northern neophytes. More than that, indeed, as at their peak the ISB were one of the most highly regarded bands on the planet, finally splitting in 1974 to go their own, idiosyncratic ways, their legendary music still glittering in their wake like gold dust.

Mike Hastings began the evening with a short solo performance of impeccable guitar picking (some songs featuring two capos at once – a new one on me), note-perfect vocals and a laid-back but confident performing manner. A member of the Trembling Bells, and a songwriter of promise, he is clearly destined for an outstanding musical future. Indeed, as Mr Heron ruefully commented to me at the interval ‘We’re going to lose that boy soon. He’s becoming too good for us’. Too good for Mike Heron? Well, he has to be something special.

The full band then took over, with Mike cheerfully conducting the evening, but in constant danger of falling off the tiny stage, although obviously revelling in his proximity to the audience. Off they went through the incomparable songbook, Mike and his band enthralling the crowd with the old classics, such as ‘When The Music Starts To Play’, ‘Each Moment’, the elusive ‘Douglas Traherne Harding’ and rousing versions of ‘Log Cabin’ and the scampish tale of ‘Black Jack David’.  On continued Mike and the band with ‘Can’t Keep Me Here Nohow’, ‘Cousin Caterpillar’ and ‘Painting Box’, one of the standout tracks on the 5000 Spirits album.

Mike maintained his spirited nostalgic vein with ‘Chinese White’ (‘a minor hippy anthem’), ‘You Get Brighter’ (‘I sang this at Woodstock. Every time I sing it, my hair turns greyer’) which confirmed my growing archivist image in the eyes of the Northern lasses sitting behind, and the spiritually uplifting ‘You Get Brighter’. Georgia sang and played beautifully a couple of her songs, accompanying herself on the organ, her ethereal, plaintive voice hushing the venue, and she and her dad ended the evening with a short unaccompanied duet, the perfect conclusion to a memorable evening.

Mike was always the more melodic, tuneful member of the ISB, at least in my eyes, and Thursday’s performance confirmed to me how vigorously his songs have withstood the vicissitudes of time, as fresh and perfect as when they were written all those years ago in that faraway country.

By Rab MacWilliam