The last of the four, what I loosely describe as “gigs”, 10cc’s Graham Gouldman performed his heart full of songs in acoustic fashion at the Snape Proms last night. With accompaniment from Mike Stevens and Iain Hornal, with percussion contributions from Dave Cobby.
Music
The Bluesman gig (Eric Bibb at Snape)
This year, at the third of four concerts, Eric Bibb appeared at the Proms on Friday night, accompanied by a slide guitarist, bassist and percussion but missing piano. As is customary with Bibb, his genial in-between song patter betrayed his current less than relaxed opinions about his own homeland and beyond. We have lost count of the number of times we’ve seen Eric live, sometimes …
Barbara Dickson – two of four!
Well it’s Saturday night……..and another trip to Snape to see Barbara perform at the Proms. Good to hear such a strong voice in her 70th year, she understandably and justifiably focused the majority of the set around the folk recordings of recent years. A few throwbacks to the past, including a Blood Brothers number, a nice take on ‘Another Suitcase’ and a couple of Gerry …
Clare Teal – Snape Proms 2017
So, our first visit to our yearly Snape Proms selection yesterday, sadly tempered by the knowledge that our last visit was pre stroke but with atrial fibrillation in full swing. Clare Teal (with Hollywood Orchestra) was the first of four visits this year, and this time she was celebrating the work of Ella Fitzgerald, post stroke but still AF encumbered. The sort of musician with …
Show Of Hands – Snape 25th August 2016
Following the excellent surprise that was Le Vent Du Nord the previous evening, on Thursday we were back with old favourites Show Of Hands, with Steve Knightley and Phil Beer again accompanied by the double bassist and vocalist Miranda Sykes in the now familiar trio setting. The set was split between the newer material in the first half and a selection of favourites in the second.
Le Vent Du Nord – Snape 24th August 2016
The first of two consecutive nights at Snape, Wednesday saw us taking a chance on the progressive of the Québecois roots band Le Vent Du Nord. A chance in the sense that we’d heard little of their recorded work, although I’m convinced that we did previously catch a portion of their set at one of our early sojourns to the Cambridge Folk Festival.
Rosanne Cash at Snape – 21st August 2016
Been a fan of Rosanne Cash ever since I picked up her “Retrospective” Best Of many, many years ago. Followed that up with the “Interiors” and “The Wheel” albums but then didn’t pick up on anything further until the superlative “The List” in 2009. Had never seen her live, so it was too good an opportunity to miss when we saw she was appearing at the Snape Proms – oddly, another Sunday night performance!
A Swingin’ Affair At Snape (August 2016)
Another Sunday, another night a Snape. No idea why the gigs we chose to attend are frequently on a Sunday night but there you go. This was supposed to the second of two jazz events we had booked to see, but unfortunately we had to cry off the Clare Teal gig because of a health related incident that I won’t expand on here….
Jon Boden at Snape (August 2016)
Our second visit to the Snape proms last night, this time to see and hear Jon Boden, whom we’ve seen many times before but only as part of the folk collective Bellowhead who, after 12 glorious years, finally decided to call it a day earlier this year. Boden has become one of the outstanding performers of traditional music of his generation and we were intrigued to see how his one man show would compare to a Bellowhead extravaganza.
Tommy Emmanuel at Snape (July 2016)
Last night was the first in a series of gigs we’ve booked as part of this season’s Snape Proms. Although we knew of him, we hadn’t heard any of his recorded work or seen him live before, so this one was a bit of a punt, spurred on by the musical company he keeps and the reverence other guitar players have for him.
Eric Bibb at the Apex (09/05/2016)
It’s been a while since we’ve seen the wonderful Eric Bibb live (last time was the Leadbelly Fest at the Albert Hall when he was sharing the stage with many others) and so it was timely that as part of his current UK tour he was appearing at the Apex in Bury St. Edmunds, fast becoming one of our favourite small scale venues. Denise was definitely showing signs of withdrawal symptoms.
Mavis!
A rare foray yesterday, especially for Denise, into Ipswich town centre – I think she’s even less inclined to visit every time she goes. On this occasion, it was to the excellent film theatre to see the documentary of the wonderful Mavis Staples. The film itself was a fairly orthodox biopic, but none the worse for that as it allowed the subject to shine without the distraction of unnecessary gimmicks.