Wednesday 3rd September 2025

Melissa Carper

St. Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph, England

Saturday 6th September 2025

85th Anniversary Battle of Britain Air Show

Duxford Aerodrome, Cambridgeshire, England

Monday 8th September 2025

Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys

The Attic, Leeds, England

Abstract: This post proposes that in witnessing live events that evoke or recreate a sense of a bygone era, those with sufficient imagination can experience something akin to what it must have been like to witness the real thing. In doing so, the witness can, in effect, travel through time, if only for a fleeting moment. The post makes this argument with reference to three eras and three events attended over the course of a single week in September 2025: the 1920s and 1930s swing era recalled in Melissa Carper’s live music performance, the 1940s wartime era evoked by the Battle of Britain Air Show at Duxford aerodrome, and the 1950s rockabilly stylings recreated by the live music “programme” of Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys. In doing so, the author of this post accomplishes a secondary objective of freshening up his approach to writing concert reviews.

If you could truly go back in time, what would you choose to experience? Leave aside the current scientific consensus that time travel, or at least backwards time travel, is impossible. Imagine that one of the common tropes of time travel fiction were true, whether that were some sort of machine, a wormhole or quantum effect, hypnosis, or simply stepping through a doorway. And leave aside all questions of causality and paradoxes. Imagine you could not affect anything, whether that be becoming your own grandfather, killing Hitler or saving Harambe. You could only observe.

What would you choose to observe? Would you go back to the music you love: witness the Woodstock festival or Dylan in Greenwich Village or the Beatles in the Cavern Club or at the rooftop concert? Would you go back to a scene of war or spectacle: the desperate dogfights in the blue skies over England in September 1940, Drake and his captains meeting the Spanish Armada at Gravelines, or the herds of American buffalo so thick it seemed as though the Great Plains themselves moved? Would you witness Alexander rouse his troops, Plato address the Symposium, George Washington refuse the kingship? Would you sightsee Rome at its peak, a Renaissance Venice unblighted by tourists, or a Globe Theatre with Shakespeare himself performing one of the roles on stage? Perhaps you peer in on a mystery: book the seat next to D. B. Cooper, eavesdrop at Gethsemane, or witness the building of the Great Pyramid?

Needless to say, the imagination is fired by such thoughts. But while all those moments are irretrievably lost, we do still have opportunities to experience moments of the past in facsimile. And, with sufficient imagination, it is not too difficult to make them vivid. Last Saturday, I sat in the grandstand at Duxford aerodrome for the Battle of Britain Air Show. I saw a squadron of Hurricanes take off and assemble into formation, and the swarm of black iPhones that were raised to record the moment could not distract from its majestic otherness. As they peeled away and, within mere seconds, became silhouettes in the distant clear blue sky, I thought of how common that same sight would have once been, 85 years ago, when this place was RAF Duxford and it was on the frontlines of the Battle of Britain. I could vividly imagine that squadron of silhouettes, rising regally into the skies, carrying young men into battle to defend their country. I could imagine a member of the ground crew stood where I stood, wondering which of those planes would not return home.

Similarly, at the same air show I saw two Spitfires, their Merlin engines on full song, chase a Messerschmitt 109, wheeling in that same brilliant blue Battle of Britain sky in mock dogfight. I craned my neck to see an Avro Lancaster fly in directly overhead from the north. And while I was indeed safer underneath its bomb bay than the citizens of Hamburg and Dresden had once been, it was disconcerting to see that great black beast turn slowly in the skies ahead, its wingspan wide like a malevolent dragon, and come around again. I saw a silver P-51 Mustang perform a victory roll high in the sky; a B-17 blistering with its flying fortress of guns; a Fairey Swordfish move slowly and unhurriedly as the machine once did when crippling the Bismarck.

Small moments, of course; not the same spectacle as of old, even when a full fifteen Spitfires and eight Hurricanes assembled in the same historic ‘Big Wing’ formation they did in 1940 and roared overhead, those two dozen Merlin Rolls-Royce engines providing a symphony unlike any other. In such moments your imagination too takes flight, and those small experiences serve as a kernel of truth you can build upon. You remember that such things did once happen, and were not merely pages in a history book, or recreations at an air show or movie set.

One can carry this idea further when one introduces a night of live music. On either side of the Duxford air show I attended gigs that delivered a heavy and intended dose of nostalgia. Melissa Carper’s throwback singing voice rested easily in her cosy cavalcade of Twenties and Thirties swing. Only one of her songs – ‘That’s My Desire’ – was a bona fide ‘oldie’, with the rest being Carper originals. You would never have been able to tell, so arresting was the jazzy nostalgia of her sound as she stroked her stand-up bass, backed by the guitars of Bonnie Montgomery and Greg Harkins.

Jake Vaadeland’s night is more consciously nostalgic – “I’m a retro man,” he sings during his encore – and almost imitative of Fifties rockabilly in look, sound and general vibe. With Jake’s slicked-back hair and charming, rehearsed stage patter – “friends and neighbours” is a common refrain – you would almost be inclined to dismiss it as twee if not for the talent on show. Between Jaxon Lalonde’s banjo, Joel Rohs’ electric guitar and Jake Smithies’ stand-up bass, the Sturgeon River Boys can shift seamlessly between fast bluegrass numbers, bopping throwback rockabilly and, in the likes of ‘Don’t Go to the Valley’, a more rootsier blues sound, playing a set that mixes old covers with the prolific Jake’s own Buddy Holly-esque self-penned tunes.

There are many points of difference between the two nights, and I regret that it is beyond the means of this post to delve into them more deeply and give each the space their marvels deserve. The bold frontman character Jake Vaadeland plays contrasts with the almost shy energy of Melissa Carper, who started her career as a side-player before her voice and talent deservedly moved her centre-stage. The old church which hosts Melissa contrasts starkly with the incongruously-named ‘Attic’ dancefloor – just a few years old – which Jake and his Boys burn up, just as Melissa’s more relaxed country garb contrasts with Jake’s studiously trim retro stylings. When Jake and his band playfully sing an advertising jingle for ‘Better Off Duds’, a vintage clothing shop in their homeland of Canada, their appearance on stage tonight has been the best advert for it.

Difference too in how our two groups of artists approach the night: Jake sticks rigorously to what he quaintly calls his “programme”, joking early on that they only take requests if you write the song title on a Canadian $100 bill and deliver it to the stage. Melissa’s fluid setlist, in contrast, shows a variety of changes and crossed-out song titles, and when one woman strides up the church aisle to the front of the stage before the encore and asks her to play ‘Pray the Gay Away’, Melissa seems taken aback. “Oh gosh, I’ve not played that one with this band,” Melissa says apologetically, and plays ‘I’m a Country Gal’ instead.

Differences, then, but also similarities; the control factors in our live theory of time travel to go alongside the variables. The grace with which both Melissa and Jake share the spotlight: Bonnie Montgomery taking the lead to sing a powerful ‘I’d Rather Have Love’ during Melissa’s set (Greg also leads on ‘Bee in a Can’), while Jake praises the electric guitar of Joel Rohs, which “souped up” his song ‘Until the Day I See You Dear’, and duels with Jake Smithies’ bass on ‘Jake vs. Jake’. The prominence of the stand-up bass is also a similarity between both nights, as are the strong opening acts: Bonnie had her own buoyant set before backing Melissa, and the local band Vox Americana opened the night with the swaying ‘St. Michael’. Rob Heron opened for Jake with a charming stage presence of his own and a series of fun songs sorely needed in our heavy and fractured times, his impressively long yodelling note on ‘Lonely Boy in the Dole Queue’ drawing cheers.

Indeed, fun itself was the name of the game on both nights of music, and what’s more, it was that shame-free, innocent fun that seems to have become lost in recent decades, and which makes nostalgia an increasingly potent force. Whether it was Melissa and her band buzzing during ‘Bee in a Can’ or bleating like goats during ‘Would You Like to Get Some Goats?’, or Jake jumping atop ‘Cousin Smithers’ stand-up bass during ‘Until the Day I See You Dear’ and grinning with Joel as the two of them harmonise with Jaxon around a single mike, you could lose yourself in an older, more innocent world, a world before edginess, deconstructionism and the lowering of standards. A time when going to see a night of live music was precisely this: a bop, a swing, a time to relax and forget your troubles.

So wonderful was this innocence and so earnestly it was delivered on the two nights, the feeling was increasingly not so much throwback nostalgia, but a sense of the uncanny, of closing your eyes and recognising there would have been many such nights exactly like this one (sans smartphone) seventy to a hundred years ago. A time when people knew how to act, knew how to dress, knew how to treat one another. We look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, of course, filtering out all that was unsavoury from those times, but there’s no harm in doing so for a night of live entertainment. The world isn’t less honest for us choosing the best moments to recreate and leaving behind the worst.

This, then, is the live theory of time travel, cherishing the moments when talented artists can pull a moment of joy from the past and polish it and make it fit into our own. “Makin’ memories I’d like to remember,” as Melissa Carper sings from the stage. When people jived in dancehalls in the Thirties and Forties and Fifties, to songs uncannily similar to those I have heard on these two nights, they didn’t do so in ignorance of the more serious faults and injustices of their times. They did so because the world belongs to music and fun and laughter as much as it does to war and prejudice and poverty, and the light has no apology to make to the dark for deciding to pour through.

Time travel, the reliving of past memories, can be accomplished in small moments like this. No mechanical contraption or gateway or quantum sauciness is needed. Only a humble ticket to enter a place of like-minded people who are seeking to nod gently to, if not better times, then at least the idea of better times.

It’s a thought that occurs to me at the Duxford aerodrome. Not long after I arrive in the morning, walking from my hotel in the nearby village, I wander past the glittering array of parked Hurricanes and Spitfires and other assorted warbirds of yesteryear towards the Classic Wings stall. Here I purchase a ticket to fly a circuit on a De Havilland DH-89A Dragon Rapide, a twin-engined biplane passenger aircraft from 1946 that seats eight, including myself, behind the single-seat cockpit. The humble plane is strikingly beautiful, the name ‘Nettie‘ written in blue cursive beside her silver nose, but it’s beautiful in an almost unassuming way, built and designed as it was during a time when beauty and aesthetics were recognised as essential for the flavour of life rather than an unnecessary cost or extravagance.

I’m seated next to the wing. The propeller just outside my window begins to turn and sputter into life, bringing with it those evocative sounds that only propeller engines from the 1940s can provide. As we taxi across the bumpy grass and out onto the runway, Nettie shuddering all the while, my brain ill-advisedly brings a thought to mind: This must be how Buddy Holly felt. But I’m not afraid and the thought isn’t an unwelcome one. Instead, I’m happy to be chasing a sensory fragment of the past, making a memory I’d like to recall. The plane buzzes down the runway, picking up speed, and we take flight. The lift is gentle, almost imperceptible. We’re up in the clear blue sky, ageless England below. For the second of three times in a week, a group of skilled individuals have transported me back in time.

Setlist (Melissa Carper 03.09.25):

(all songs written by Melissa Carper, unless noted)

  1. Your Furniture’s Too Nice (from Borned in Ya)
  2. Lucky Five (from Borned in Ya)
  3. Ramblin’ Soul (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  4. That’s My Only Regret (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  5. I Do What I Wanna (Melissa Carper/Gina Gallina) (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  6. I’d Rather Have Love (Bonnie Montgomery) (unreleased) [Bonnie singing]
  7. Would You Like to Get Some Goats? (from Daddy’s Country Gold)
  8. Bee in a Can (unknown) (unreleased) [Greg singing]
  9. Zen Buddha (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  10. Makin’ Memories (from Daddy’s Country Gold)
  11. Texas, Texas, Texas (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  12. That’s My Desire (Helmy Kresa/Carroll Loveday) (from Borned in Ya)
  13. Boxers on Backwards (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  14. Made with Love (unreleased)
  15. Evil Eva (Carper/Joe Sundell) (from Borned in Ya)
  16. Christian Girlfriend (from Arkansas Bound)
  17. Encore: I’m a Country Gal (unreleased)

Flying List (Duxford 06.09.25):

  1. Pre-Show Classic Wings Flight: De Havilland DH-89A Dragon Rapide TX310 G-AIDL
  2. Douglas A-26C Intruder
  3. Hawker Hurricane x 10
  4. Battle of Britain Dogfight: Supermarine Spitfire vs Messerschmitt Bf109 (Hispano HA-1112 Buchon)
  5. Miles Magister; De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk
  6. CA-13 Boomerang; Yakovlev Yak-3
  7. Curtiss P-40F Warhawk; Curtiss Hawk 75; Curtiss P40-C Tomahawk
  8. PBY-5A Catalina; Fairey Swordfish
  9. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
  10. P-47 Thunderbolt
  11. Hawker Fury
  12. Search and Rescue Demonstration: NH90 NFH Helicopter
  13. Bristol Blenheim
  14. De Havilland Vampire
  15. F-86 Sabre; Canadair CL 13B
  16. P-51 Mustang x 3
  17. Acrobatic Display: Yak-18; Yak-52 x 2
  18. Battle of Britain Memorial Flight: Avro Lancaster; Hawker Hurricane; Supermarine Spitfire
  19. Duxford Big Wing Formation: Supermarine Spitfire x 15; Hawker Hurricane x 8

Setlist (Jake Vaadeland 08.09.25):

(all songs written by Jake Vaadeland, unless noted)

  1. Father’s Son (from Retro Man)
  2. The Bachelor’s Life (from Everybody But Me)
  3. Farewell Blues (Leon Roppolo/Elmer Schoebel/Paul Mares) (unreleased)
  4. More and More (from Retro Man… More and More)
  5. Be a Farmer or a Preacher (from Retro Man)
  6. Flint Hill Special (Earl Scruggs) (unreleased)
  7. Jake vs Jake (unreleased)
  8. One More Dollar to Go (from One More Dollar to Go)
  9. Great Joy and Happiness (single)
  10. Diet Pepsi Jingle (unreleased)
  11. I Ain’t Going Back to Nashville (from More and More)
  12. Bound to the Road (from One More Dollar)
  13. Sittin’ on a Strawbale (from More and More)
  14. Don’t Go to the Valley (from One More Dollar)
  15. Gonna Find My Baby (from Everybody But Me)
  16. The Greatest Showman Around (unreleased)
  17. Better Off Duds Jingle (unreleased)
  18. Cow on the Road (from More and More)
  19. Until the Day I See You Dear (from No More Pain in My Heart)
  20. Y’All Come (Arlie Duff) (unreleased)
  21. Encore: Love Bug (Wayne Kemp/Curtis Wayne) (unreleased)
  22. Encore: Retro Man (from Retro Man)
  23. Encore: Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.