Steve Knightley at
Glasson Dock Village Hall 11 March 2016
The first gig I ever
went to when I moved to Lancaster in the summer of 2005 was to
see Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman supporting Martin Simpson at the
village hall in Glasson Dock. The Lakeman family, like Steve
Knightley, hail from Devon and Sean's brother Seth got a couple of
mentions during Steve's very entertaining sold-out gig.
The title of his
current tour is 'All at Sea' and there is no shortage of martime songs
in both folk music in general and Steve's back catalogue. The set
included songs from his solo albums as well as some Show of Hands numbers, plus cover versions including Don Henley's 'Boys of Summer' – with
Deadhead being replaced by Bellowhead – and the Otis Redding
classic '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay'.
Steve is never short of
a humourous story, some of which were aimed at the previous night's
gig in Liverpool and some at his SoH bandmate Phil Beer. He even did
a passable impersonation of radio DJ Mark Radcliffe.
He had been interviewed
on local radio in Liverpool and remarked on how this can be something
of a chore at times especially if the presenter hasn't done their
homework and knows little more about Steve than the fact that he is a
folk singer. And the radio station was a bit nervous about playing a
new track called 'Breme Fell at Hastings' as it included some old Saxon
words. So much so that they faded the song out before the end as one
of the words sounded a bit like a swear word. This caused much
hilarity among the Lancashire audience that their Scouse neighbours
might be upset by some strong language.
On a more serious note
Steve gave us an update on his son who has been quite seriously ill over a number of years. I'm sure I wasn't the only audience member who
recalls the Show of Hands gig at Lancaster University when Steve had
had to return home suddenly due to his son's illness and left Phil
Beer and bass player Miranda Sykes to play the gig without him. But
the good news is that his son has recently finished a course of
treatment and is now much better. Steve then played the SoH song 'The
Dive' which he said he had found very difficult to play when his son
had been unwell. The song relates the story of a lad who surfaces when
his air is running low only to find that his marker buoy had broken
loose and the boat with his father in it was nowhere to be seen.
Other highlights
included 'Tall Ship Story' with Steve strumming away on his cuatro (a South American ukulele-type instrument) and 'The Napoli', a song about the
ship that ran aground several years ago and was one of many songs
the audience was encouraged to sing along to - “scratch Joe Public,
what's underneath – a looter and a pirate and a thief!”
Thanks should go to
Nikki from ImageAcoustic who arranged the gig and she is bringing another
member of Show of Hands, Miranda Sykes with Rex Preston to Ellel
Village Hall on Saturday the 16th of April. Tickets are
availalble from http://www.imageacoustic.com/index.php/concerts/
Another gig to mention is Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman who are playing at More Music in Morecambe on Saturday the 9th of April. More info and tickets from http://www.moremusic.org.uk/events/242/roberts-lakeman
Colin Bertram
12 March 2016
