This Autumn’s touring has just been posted on the gigs page. The run of dates begin in September with appearances at the legendary Green Note, London, and Bristol Folk House. There are then gigs up and down the UK over the following months, including a handful of Scottish dates, notably a homecoming in Edinburgh! Have a browse on the gigs page and get your tickets in early.
I’ll be playing at a bunch of the festivals this Summer, from Beverley to Sidmouth to Shambala. As well as playing a set at the brilliant Fire In the Mountain, I’ll also be hosting ‘The Singers Fire’ along with some great fellow musician friends. Look out for some video we’ll try and capture of a few of the round-the-fire songs. I’m also playing a few of the Breaking the Spell of Loneliness shows with George Monbiot - Hay Festival, Brighton Festival and Sidmouth.
I’m back to solo UK gigging in a week or so and I’ll be winding my way all over once again, with a bunch of gigs in both England and Scotland. As is often the case I’ll be playing some old favourites (The Glad in Glasgow, Goose Is Out in London, and a return to the site of my first ever gig, The Grove) and some ones that are totally new to me too (a renovated mine in Egremont and an old saltcellar vault in Bristol). I’ll have a handful of new songs for the tour - get any requests (and your tickets!) in early.
Last week I played a live session on the BBC World Service show from Oxford Literary Festival. I had the privilege to be up on stage with some inspiring characters, writers and thinkers - and they had the privilege to be up on stage with a banjo! I was playing excerpts of my songs Reclaim the Street and I’m Coming Home and having a quick chat too.
I’ve had a really nice few weeks rehearsing and performing a show with a group of fellow folk musicians and a theatre company that was commissioned by EFDSS. John Kirkpatrick, Bryony Griffiths and Kate Locksley and myself were performing a collection of narrative folk songs - dark, old ballads most of them - with a backdrop of animation and puppetry from the theatre, which told the stories visually. It was a really fun thing to be involved with and we’ll be returning to it in the Summer and perhaps beyond.
After a short Christmas break me and George Monbiot will be dusting off our ‘Breaking the Spell of Loneliness’ tour and taking it to Scotland in early February. As well as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, we’ll be playing in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. From there we’ll be going on to Birmingham and Aberystwyth, both also in February.
We’ll also shortly be announcing a few festivals that we’ll be taking the show to in the Spring and Summer …keep an eye out for those.
In April I’ll be back out doing a solo tour. I’ve been working on a bunch of new songs and trad. arrangements that I can’t wait to play out, so I might well use that occasion. I’ll be in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, Cumbria, Leeds, London, Bristol and more besides.
And then it’s on to the summer festivals - this year I’ll be playing at Beverley, Kimpton, Teignmouth, as well as several performances at Sidmouth Folk Week.
Last week I was in Lancashire doing something quite different; the first of a series of rehearsals for a project I’m a part of called The Theatre Ballads. Organised and designed by the Horse and Bamboo Theatre Company, it’s being billed as ‘somewhere between an evening at the theatre and a music gig’. Joining me are fellow musicians Bryony Griffith, Kate Locksley and John Kirkpatrick, as well as two visual artists and puppeteers. Going by the rehearsals we’ve had so far it’ll be great fun to be part of and full of newly unearthed traditional ballads. You can read a bit more about it here. In March we will be performing the show in Bristol, Bury and London.
