Steve Knightley

 Westbury on Trym Village Hall

There are gigs, and there are gigs. This one was very special indeed.

Depending on how you count, Steve Knightley is one half, one third, or one quarter of folk phenomenon Show of Hands. He's the heart which the duo, trio or quartet orbits around. Last week he did a show at Westbury-on-Trym village hall: a small venue compared with (say) the Albert Hall. In previous years, Steve's spring solo tour has been distinctly themed: four years ago he told the story of his life and career; three years ago he took the audience through a day-in-the-life; two years ago he talked about the genesis of some of his songs. This year, he just sang. I think he was just glad to be back in front of real human beings again after the trauma of lockdown. These small village venues are a way of reconnecting with his, er, roots. 

I don't know quite how to convey the energy of a Steve Knightley gig to anyone unfortunate enough never to have attended one. Unkind people have talked about Steve Knightley Rallies; I myself have said that Show of Hands at its best feels like a kind of revivalist meeting. He doesn't have the overt sense of showmanship that, say, Martyn Joseph does. The persona he projects is, on the surface, quite laid back and informal. He is incredibly at home on stages, be they big or small. But he's actually working the audience very hard. He comes back to the stage from the back of the auditorium in the second half. He says the audience haven't clapped enough, goes off, and comes back on again. And then he does it a third time, with his sound man doing a rock n'roll style intro ("The man who put the oots in roots"). It's funny stuff and we lap it up: but I suspect he really did feel that they audience wasn't energised enough and was trying to hype us up a bit. He learned all the tricks of the trade doing gigs in pubs where the punters had no particular love of folk music. 

His act depends on audience participation. We aren't singing along; we're part of the act. For the new songs (the reggae inspired "Dreckley", for example) he teaches the audience the chorus before launching into the song, but mostly he takes it for granted that we already know it. He does the verse of Cousin Jack, and the audience go straight into "Where there's a mine..." without any prompting. We don't need any encouragement to do the shanty section of Roots ("we've lost more than we'll ever known").  The song works very well in the slightly more meditative iteration of the solo arrangement. He talks at some length over one of the instrumental riffs; underlining -- again -- that the song is a response to Kim Howells remarks about 2001 Performing Arts Act. (Someone had to respond, he says, and Fisherman's Friends were at sea and Seth Lakeman was still at school.) "The minister said his vision of hell was three folksingers in a pub near Wells" he sings, gesturing broadly towards the Wells Road. 

He may not go in for the very heavy and dense lyricism that we talked about Chris Wood excelling at; but his lyrics are ... rooted... in deep feeling and location. Like the song about the boy who is separated from his fathers boat during a diving expedition...

Now we don’t talk much, about that day
Got two kids of my own now and one on the way
But if they’re to grow, and if they’re to thrive
One day they’ll go, one day they’ll dive

He doesn't exactly have a beautiful voice, like, say, Jim Moray or Luke Jackson; but he pours feeling into every line. His unaccompanied Parting Glass which ostensibly wound up the evening was incredibly moving. But he encores with his latest, crowd-pleasing anthem. (Some artists elicit sinking feelings when they say they are going to do something from the new album: each new Show of Hands album simply adds three or four more songs that we're hoping will find their way into the set.) "I think this year's going to be the best one yet" ... we're going to throw our masks away and start going to festivals again. It catches the mood of the moment, post covid. Before the final chorus he starts to randomly insert lines from other summer songs. I Can See Clearly Now; In the Summertime; Here Come the Sun. 

Of course we can see what he's doing. Of course we know that we are being worked. You could even say that he was being a tiny bit of a drama queen. And do you know what? It doesn't matter a bit. We come out of the tiny little hall with a spring in our step. 

Folk music is lovely. Go listen to some.

Listen: The Best One Yet

Buy me some beer next time I go to a gig