Music

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.

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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.

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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!

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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….

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A rare foray (for me) to the Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich last night to see the James Hunter Six. Nearly a year since I was last at the Wolsey and a mere twenty years since we saw James Hunter at the now defunct Lion’s Den shortly after we moved down to Ipswich from the North East. This one was a somewhat less sweaty, more genteel environment but still an excellent gig nonetheless.

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The first of quite a few shows we’ve got lined up at the Apex in Bury St. Edmunds, Oysters 3 is an offshoot of the Oysterband and consists of John Jones, Ian Telfer and Alan Prosser. All founder members of the group, this was billed as a chance to hear some of the best known material in a stripped back, acoustic environment.

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