Steve Knightley

Westbury on Trym Village Hall


Steve Knightley's songs, he says, come from four or perhaps five places. Phrases; newspaper headlines; commissions; guitar riffs; made-up stories and true stories. He promises us that Yeovil Town is one of the true ones. He really did play a disastrous gig to an audience of four; he really was menaced by a scary looking guy with tattoos in a fish and chip shop on the way home; and when he and Phil got back to the car they really did pretend they were going to run him down. The evening ended in the way the song describes;

I saw his fright in the white headlights
Oh God we only just slowed
He put his hands out,
Gave the front a clout
And seeing it was us inside
Threw his chips on the floor
Staggered round to my door
The moment the engine died...

On the record it has a slightly mournful air; but Steve now thinks it needs a Johnny Cash vibe. (He's a good mimic of other people's singing styles. Later in the evening we get a flash of what Cousin Jack would sound like sung by Bob Dylan.) Part way through the last verse of Yeovil Town, Steve loses the lyrics. He stops; histrionically runs through the words in his head; can't find them, and resumes  with the next line he can remember. Two songs later he remembers the lines he missed; and performs them again, out of context, so we can get the full effect. A small glitch in the performance has become a delightful part of the act.

No-one commands a stage like Steve Knightley. He isn't showy in the way that last week's Martyn Joseph arguably is: there is no climbing off the stage into the audience or calling out "how are you BRISTOL." But there is a lots of coaxing the audience to sing along; and lots of talk. The kind of talk which makes everyone in the audience feel he is talking to them; that they are spending a night in village hall with an endlessly interesting and witty companion.

Steve is, of course one half (or, depending on who is currently in the band, one half or one quarter) of Show of Hands, my favorite and indeed everybody's favorite gloomy folk-band. He spends the first part of each year touring solo; he'll be back with Phil and Miranda and very probably Cormac in the spring.

His solo shows deliberately involve a lot of talking. Two years ago he looked back on his career, telling stories about how he got into folk music and how his career developed. Last year he described what a day in the life of a touring musician was like, with a song for each hour of the day. This year is entitled "pass notes": Steve plays songs from right across his career and chats about how each one was written. I don't think it worked quite as well as the last two years; possibly because he wasn't saying much about the songs' origins that regular fans haven't already heard. But an evening with Steve Knightley, some songs and a guitar is always a delight.

Commissioned to write a song about the Exeter Rifles he essentially went through Wikepedia and underlined every bit of regimental history that sounded like a song lyric, and put it to rollicking marching beat:

the lads from Devonshires rolling hills
(celere at audax, swift and bold)
they hold this trench and the hold it still
(celer et audax, swift and bold)
swift and bold, swift and bold 
if  the heart is steady then the line will hold

The Colonel liked it so much he made him an honorary rifleman.

"Let me go sweet Bella, let me go..." on the other hand was just written to go with a pretty guitar riff to make something suitable to end the first half of a concert. "It took me three minutes to write the words. Well, maybe two and half."

The Bristol Ticket Shop, a longstanding stalwart of the Bristol music scene went out of business last month, and Steve will probably never see his cut of the tickets sales. But (like Martyn last week) he came along and played the gig anyway. Why is everyone in folk music so darned nice?