Our Joni Mitchell Musical Experience in Tewkesbury

Paul Zervas, Katherine Pepper and band

Our Musical Experience in Tewkesbury

On Friday, July 25th, 2025, we drove up to Tewkesbury to hear Zervas and Pepper, a musical duo from Cardiff, performing This Flight Tonight: The Songs of Joni Mitchell.

Clare has been a lifelong fan of Joni Mitchell, having seen her only once—in London, when Clare was in her early twenties. So this concert, a birthday present, was a source of considerable excitement: Paul Zervas and Kathryn Pepper channelling the spirit and sound of Mitchell’s music. It was, of course, a triumph.

Kathryn Pepper both looks and sounds uncannily like the young Joni and Paul Zervas bears a striking resemblance to James Taylor - thematically appropriate given that Joni and James were romantically entangled once upon a time. Zervas and Pepper, as it happens, are also a couple.

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They were joined by a talented backing band for those Joni numbers that demanded it. What impressed me particularly—beyond the expected classics from Blue and other early albums—was their inclusion of tracks from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, a more sophisticated and less immediately accessible album. Kathryn Pepper, in particular, seemed to revel in performing those songs.

The concert took place at the Roses Theatre. Afterwards, we returned to our hotel—the Tudor House Hotel—only to find ourselves serendipitously caught up in Tewkesbury Live, a weekend event we had only vaguely clocked beforehand. Every pub and hotel in town, it seemed, was hosting blues and rock bands. We wandered into the bar, got ourselves drinks, and sat outside in the warm evening, listening to a three-piece band, The Desperados UK, blasting out soft rock standards at a volume that could probably be picked up in Gloucester.

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Numbers included Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, and Bryan Adams’s Summer of ’69. Loud, familiar, and utterly enjoyable - an excellent end to the evening.

Saturday morning brought a faintly less euphoric moment. When I returned to the car park, I discovered that my parking ticket had slipped off the dashboard overnight, and the local enforcement officer - unmoved by such technicalities - had left a £25/£50 fixed penalty notice on the windscreen. I have, of course, appealed, and we shall see what justice (if any) prevails. (Good news: my appeal was successful!).

Nonetheless, the evening in Tewkesbury - musical, unexpected, and full of cheerful people - was not in any way diminished.