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Waking in the Shivelight: Tyler Childers Live in Manchester

March 15, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Sunday 8th March 2026

Manchester Arena, Manchester, England

shivelight (noun)

the lances of sunlight cast through the leaves of the trees onto the forest floor

“I ain’t talkin’ about those people that aggravate ya,” Tyler Childers says, reclining on the stage with a mischievous glint in his eye, delivering his latest variation on the spiel that introduces his new fan-favourite song ‘Bitin’ List’. “The kind who irritate ya… like, people who don’t like your concerts.”

Happily, I don’t count myself among their number. In November, I wrote a review of Tyler’s one-off London concert that, while mostly positive, contained some criticisms – or at least some laments about what Tyler Childers no longer was. I centred this around the unexpected feeling of hollowness I felt upon leaving the O2 in Greenwich, even though Tyler and his band had fully entertained that night. An eight-man band – including two keys players and, on some songs, three or four guitars – seemed bloated for a country band, especially for an artist renowned for his excellent songwriting, which risked being lost in a wall of sound.

The three-song acoustic interlude on the arena’s B-stage that night was a rawer, earthier experience much more in keeping with what attracted me to Tyler’s music, and also threw into starker relief some of the edge that I felt had been lost. And, more importantly, the rehearsed spiel from Tyler and the bright, choreographed videos that played on the arena stage throughout the London set betrayed that this was a show, an act; hurtling thrillingly along the tracks like a rollercoaster, but along tracks nonetheless, and therefore lacking in the spontaneity and unique moments of magic that I hope to experience whenever I attend a night of live music.

Inspired by the German word ‘schilderwald’, which means a forest of bewildering and competing signs, I coined in my London review the word ‘Childerswald’ to describe the strange experience of the Tyler Childers fan as he or she navigates the various choices and left-field turns made by this gifted artist. And yet, the strangest feeling greets me after this second gig just a few months later, in a similar-sized arena in my hometown of Manchester. The band’s the same, the setlist’s much the same (give or take a song or two) and the atmosphere’s much the same. The videos projected on the screens are the same and even Tyler’s song introductions and jawing are much the same. And yet walking through the Childerswald, Tyler’s forest of competing signs and left-turns, a second time, I find that the small kernel of hollowness that I couldn’t shift in London, and felt obliged to write about, has completely gone.

Some might say that perhaps I’ve just had time to get over myself, to accept that this is what the Tyler Childers experience is now and to appreciate it. But reflecting on the Manchester night a few days later and comparing it to the London gig months previously, I also feel that there have been a number of small differences between the nights which together have made a huge difference in the experience. The Childerswald remains the same, but these small differences have accumulated to guide me onto a clear forest path, with a break in the rain and the musical shivelight able to breach the canopy and pour down in brightening lances on the forest floor. If I was ever on an updated bitin’ list of Tyler’s for my mild observations of the London gig, my name is one that can be scratched out.

Certainly, my outlook on the night is immediately brightened by the sunny arrival of Molly Tuttle, tonight’s impressive opening act. This is one of the most crucial differences between London and Manchester. With all due respect to the two bands who opened for Tyler in London, their sound – one a heavy, dissonant grunge-rock band and the other a veteran indie-rock outfit – was an ill fit for a night of country music and songcraft.

Molly Tuttle, in contrast, is the perfect opener for Tyler Childers. Joined by Vanessa McGowan on stand-up bass and her fiancé Ketch Secor, of the band Old Crow Medicine Show, on fiddle, banjo and harmonica, her winsome blend of California pop and progressive bluegrass is an excellent complement and primer for Tyler’s main set. The open-road sunshine of her first song, ‘The Highway Knows’, is the first breach of shivelight through the canopy, and the night only gets better and better from there. Molly’s set announces an infusion of energy that everyone in the arena rides until Tyler and his band leave the stage after ‘Universal Sound’ some hours later.

Along with a couple of fine covers, The Rolling Stones’ ‘She’s a Rainbow’ and Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’, Molly Tuttle and her two companions deliver a fine set of original songs that are the first triumph of the night. Molly’s music has been on my radar for a while and she would be a concert draw by herself, so to have her on the same bill as Tyler Childers here in England is a real red letter day. This is one of the key advantages Tyler should be continuing to exploit for his tours here in the UK and in Europe. As with John R. Miller on his previous tour this side of the Atlantic, Tyler can give us the opportunity to hear some excellent American acts who might not have made it over here otherwise.

It’s an opportunity Molly seizes, winning the large arena crowd over with intelligent songs such as ‘Alice in the Bluegrass’ and the immaculate, satisfied hope of ‘Crooked Tree’. Her renowned bluegrass picking is on display in the likes of ‘Over the Line’, ‘Dooley’s Farm’ and the fast-paced closer ‘San Joaquin’, and even ‘Rosalee’, which I confess I thought a bit kitsch when I first heard it on the album, proves to be infused with attitude and atmosphere in a live setting. “Molly Tuttle on that fiery guitar!” Ketch Secor shouts to the crowd after the song ends, and it’s not the smitten mind of a fiancé that prompts the acclaim. She – and they – have been fantastic.

However, it’s not only in the inspired choice of opener that the path through the forest becomes more illuminated. After the odd, Beatlesque, Joyful Noise version of ‘Way of the Triune God’ playing over the tannoy has whipped the crowd into an anticipatory frenzy, Tyler and his band come onto the stage and barge straight into a hearty version of ‘Eatin’ Big Time’ – a song from the latest album that proves ideal for an opening salvo in tonight’s atmosphere. Tyler has begun as he means to go on, and it’s clear that he’s very much here – and on. Even if the songs are pre-ordained, the background videos ready to play in sequence and the spontaneity consciously spurned, tonight Tyler shows that he enjoys the rollercoaster of it all as much as anyone.

“I’ll tell you why,” Tyler drawls towards the end of his set, announcing his four final songs. “This is the third show we’ve done this year. I’ve been at home. And you know what I’ve been doin’?”

“Nothin’,” he whispers, before returning to his boisterous drawl.

“And I’ve had a lovely time,” he clarifies, playing in Dublin and in Glasgow. “But when it came to this show” – Manchester is the only English date on the tour – “the more it came to me, with these last couple of shows, how rusty I had gotten. And not even just in my singin’, but in my… emotion. And you know, I think, today – I woke up!”

“And I feel a whole lot better. And” – he tells a cheering crowd of twenty thousand – “I think I might be able to do this thing for a livin’!”

This is crucial to the enjoyment of the night. Much of Tyler’s spiel, though I’ve heard the bones of it before in London, is spoken here with genuine zeal, the man clearly enjoying his opportune bouts of indulgent verbosity and theatricality. When he cracks a smile, or his eyes show a spark as they flash around the room, it’s clear he’s digging it. And so are we. The uniqueness of this particular night of live music, then, is not in any spontaneous moment, no particularly outstanding song or display of musicianship, but in the effortful goodwill coming from the man on stage, the charisma of a talented man exercising his talents.

Which is not to say that the night is without its outstanding songs. After opening with ‘Eatin’ Big Time’, we’re treated to ‘Shake the Frost’, one of Tyler’s most beautiful songs and a personal favourite of mine. Having previously heard this solo from an acoustic guitar, tonight’s full-band version is a success, with the other musicians not crowding the display of Tyler’s distinctive voice and providing only light, tasteful touches.

‘Rustin’ in the Rain’ and ‘Dirty Ought Trill’ are also energetic highlights in the opening salvos of the set, while the goodwill Tyler is radiating is most evident on ‘All Your’n’, as he beams and gestures from the stage, and in ‘Oneida’ as the music sways. After ‘I Swear (to God)’, he grins and bobs his head enthusiastically, and his jawing to announce ‘Bitin’ List’ – quoted at the start of this review – is more mischievous than ever. He howls lustily during the song’s coda.

But the revelation for me in the first half of Tyler’s set is undoubtedly ‘Jersey Giant’, which Tyler is in the habit of dismissing (though light-heartedly) as “the TikTok song”. While he’s never released a studio master of it, ‘Jersey Giant’ has become one of his most well-known songs due to an inspired, lo-fi recording that can be found online. In light of that popularity, and the song’s unlikely success as a new country standard covered by other artists, Tyler has begun playing it live himself.

When Tyler played ‘Jersey Giant’ in London in November, it felt like an obligation, a routine, slightly pedestrian version played solo by Tyler on his acoustic guitar. Tonight in the Manchester Arena, however, it is amplified – in more ways than one. Rather than played solo, the whole band joins Tyler, providing the same sort of light, tasteful touches they had done earlier on ‘Shake the Frost’. While in London the song felt lost, tonight it feels as though Tyler has made progress in working out how he wants to play it, and the song is infused with all the wistful power that has driven its popularity.

When Molly Tuttle is invited back to the stage later on in the night for ‘Honky Tonk Flame’ – the bluegrass picker getting an opportunity to display one of her signature fiery guitar flourishes there – I find myself thinking how it may have been a missed opportunity not to use her voice for the female harmony in ‘Jersey Giant’, an absent ingredient that was part of the song’s secret sauce in its original bootleg recording. Nevertheless, it still feels special, one of those inexplicable compositions that just hits the right spot. Tyler has a number of such songs in his catalogue, and tonight ‘Jersey Giant’ goes a long way towards filling the ‘Feathered Indians’-shaped hole in fans’ hearts.

It is these canopy-breaching doses of light and energy which are making the night a cumulative treat. Tyler’s three-song acoustic interlude, played from a small B-stage amongst the crowd on the floor, is pretty much identical to what I remember from London – a tender ‘Lady May’ followed by a thrillingly raw ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ and the noble, wholesome glory of ‘Follow You to Virgie’ – but feels even better when coming off the momentum of the excellent first set, in which even newer songs like ‘Down Under’ and ‘Watch Out’ have had their own vibrancy.

When Tyler walks through the crowd to rejoin the band on the A-stage, it’s a seamless transition back into the powerful amplified groove, with ‘Old Country Church’ followed by the obligatory band-member introductions and a sprawling ‘Whitehouse Road’. It’s after ‘Honky Tonk Flame’ with Molly that Tyler jaws about the rustiness I quoted earlier – “I think, today, I woke up!” – which not only serves as an intriguing admission of his state of mind as he embarks on a new year of music, but is also a savvy bit of crowd-work to soften the blow that, after these four final songs, there will be no encore.

Fortunately, those four songs are a triumphant end to a remarkable night of live music. ‘Way of the Triune God’ is a funky gospel bop powered by Tyler’s tearing vocals, and while ‘Snipe Hunt’, which follows, remains a song I struggle to admire, it nevertheless has a lot of frantic power that allows the band to cut loose. Given their head, the band stomp their way into the white-hot inferno of ‘House Fire’, before Tyler leaves us with a note of contemplative beauty in the final song of the night, the serene and cosmic ‘Universal Sound’.

“Pay no mind to the words I say, ’cause they ain’t no count anyway,” Tyler had sung earlier, in ‘I Swear (to God)’, and I can happily say the same of my own comments, past and present, about Tyler Childers live. As I leave the Arena, there’s no small kernel of hollowness this time. There’s only the buzz that comes from experiencing a great night of music: a generational singer and songwriter backed by a powerful band, with a host of remarkable songs to choose from, a perfect opening act and the man himself clearly enjoying the moment as much as anyone. During his three-song acoustic set on the arena’s B-stage, Tyler spoke playfully – as he had in London – of how we might wish to relate the experience of the night to those who were not there. Perhaps, he suggests, we might say that he came gliding down on a horse to this B-stage, right down on a zipline, and no shit, wasn’t it spectacular?

But Tyler Childers does not need any tall tales to burnish his live experience. The reality is impressive enough.

Setlist #1 (Molly Tuttle):

(all songs written by Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor, unless noted)

  1. The Highway Knows (from So Long Little Miss Sunshine)
  2. She’s a Rainbow (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) (from But I’d Rather Be With You)
  3. Over the Line (Tuttle/Secor/Steve Poltz) (from Crooked Tree)
  4. Rosalee (Tuttle/Secor/Paul Sikes/Trannie Anderson) (from So Long Little Miss Sunshine)
  5. Alice in the Bluegrass (from City of Gold)
  6. White Rabbit (Grace Slick) (from Into the Wild)
  7. Old Me (New Wig) (from So Long Little Miss Sunshine)
  8. Dooley’s Farm (from Crooked Tree)
  9. Crooked Tree (Tuttle/Melody Walker) (from Crooked Tree)
  10. San Joaquin (from City of Gold)

Setlist #2 (Tyler Childers):

(all songs from the album Snipe Hunter and written by Tyler Childers, unless noted)

  1. Eatin’ Big Time
  2. Shake the Frost (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  3. Down Under
  4. Rustin’ in the Rain (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  5. All Your’n (from Country Squire)
  6. Oneida
  7. Dirty Ought Trill
  8. I Swear (to God) (from Purgatory)
  9. Jersey Giant (unreleased)
  10. Bitin’ List
  11. Watch Out
  12. Lady May (from Purgatory)
  13. Nose on the Grindstone
  14. Follow You to Virgie (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  15. Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  16. Whitehouse Road (from Purgatory)
  17. Honky Tonk Flame (with Molly Tuttle) (from Purgatory)
  18. Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  19. Snipe Hunt
  20. House Fire (from Country Squire)
  21. Universal Sound (from Purgatory)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Oda Elementale: LA LOM Live in Leeds

February 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Sunday 15th February 2026

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, England

“… to see them shining,

I do not want

to see their lightning

locked in a cage;

I want to see them live.”

PABLO NERUDA, ELEMENTAL ODES (1954)

The concert reviews I am in the habit of writing usually retreat into the safety of narrative. The night begins, I describe the venue and the atmosphere, the music progresses and reaches a crescendo. Perhaps there is an encore. If there are any standout moments, whether small or grand, I remark upon them. If there are any particularly special songs, I praise them. If there are any remarks or stories from the musicians on the stage, I try to recall them faithfully.

This was true of the last review I wrote of LA LOM, in the Jazz Café in London back in August. But in the days after returning from Leeds for this latest gig, I find myself struggling to do so again. It is not that the night has been lacking in special songs, or standout moments, or vibrant atmosphere. Even the venue, which looked unpromising – a repurposed 1950s social club in a frighteningly run-down part of town – was faultless, its drab, throwback exterior revealing a surprisingly revitalised interior of musical energy and communal strength.

No – instead, the reason why the attempt to write a narrative of the night runs like sand through my fingers is because LA LOM themselves are better described elementally, as one might a lightning strike or breach of sunlight through a dark canopy. Their power cannot be communicated narratively, by describing the cheers as they arrive on stage, the songs they burst into, or the roars for an encore as they leave – roars that are answered with a thunderous, pulsing coda of ‘El Sonido de Los Mirlos’, somehow outdoing the ferocious ‘La Danza Del Petrolero’ and ‘El Cascabel’ which ended their main set. One could describe the dancing throb of the audience, the enthusiastic trills of some of the women in the crowd, or try to evoke the heavy feel of body heat as a mass of hundreds give themselves over to the music.

One could describe the band themselves. An instrumental band; a singular, intoxicating mix of Latin sounds – cumbia, chicha, bolero – with touches of Americana soul and rock and roll. I could describe, on my side of the stage, Zac Sokolow grinning in an open red shirt, his black-and-copper Kay electric guitar barking and singing with the dexterity of a lead singer, close enough for me to see its veneer beginning to wear. Behind him, Nick Baker seated behind a hybrid drum kit of his own configuration: classic drums matched with congas and a cowbell, played with drumsticks and with his bare hands, sometimes with one drumstick while his hand plays a beat on the conga, and sometimes with maracas as drumsticks for an impossibly cool blend of percussive sounds. And, at the far end of the stage, Jake Faulkner all in black, sometimes silhouetted in the stagelights. Alternating between electric and stand-up bass, he is also the band’s cheerleader, jumping and whipping the crowd into heightened motion and howling wild aullidos at cathartic moments of the songs.

And one could certainly collate moments, if only a narrative could be found to hold them. Some are moments common to any LA LOM gig, all part of the passionate show this trio are capable of performing. The familiar live riffs of ‘El Paso Del Gigante’ and ‘Dane Dane Benleri Var’. The similarly recognisable ones of ‘Santee Alley’ and ‘Danza de LA LOM’ pulled straight from their records. The swaying of Zac as he manipulates his guitar into singing, and standing broad-legged as he deploys the heavy Led Zeppelin-esque riff of ‘Alacrán’. The effortless shifts in tempo that allow Nick to run free on his drums. The theatricality of Jake spinning his stand-up bass during ‘Alacrán’, and holding that same massive bass over his head like a colossus at the end of the set.

Other moments are ones that would add flavour to a narrative of this particular night. ‘Angels Point’, the band’s signature song, being played surprisingly early, just three songs into the set; a series of unreleased originals also making the setlist and suggesting their best is yet to come. ‘Alvarado’, introduced by Zac as the first song they wrote together, being one of three songs they play tonight from their first self-titled EP. The moment when Zac opens a metal tin on his pedalboard and takes out a toothpick that he chews on in between riffs; the moment when Nick drops his maracas quickly at his feet as Zac’s guitar launches straight into another song, or when Jake is wrongfooted because of the same – but only for a moment, mind, for all three members of the band can play off one another with ease. And Zac’s other guitar, a distinctive red 1960s National Val-Pro, being placed on its stand by a roadie shortly before the band take the stage, and yet remaining there, completely untouched, throughout the night, as though the worn black-and-copper Kay that Zac carries out instead refuses to be put down.

I can mention all this, but not place it into a simple narrative. LA LOM provide ninety minutes on the stage tonight that is of a power you cannot parse, except in recognising their music as something elemental, that would be better understood by something like the free poetic allusions of Pablo Neruda’s Elemental Odes than by any humble review composed by a man stood in the audience to the right of the Brudenell stage. Elemental then, or perhaps quantum; something that is everywhere all at once, impossible to measure or to grasp except where light shines on it. And how to measure when that selfsame band are the ones bringing the light?

Such is a night witnessing the music of LA LOM.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Los Angeles League of Musicians and written by Zac Sokolow, Jake Faulkner and Nick Baker, unless noted)

  1. Café Tropical (from LA LOM EP)
  2. Lucia
  3. Angels Point
  4. Santa Ana Serenade (unreleased)
  5. Los Sabanales (Calixto Ochoa) (unreleased)
  6. El Paso Del Gigante (Albert Tlahuetl) (from Live at Thalia Hall)
  7. Alvarado (from LA LOM EP)
  8. Delta 88 (unreleased)
  9. Cumbia Sampuesana (José Joaquín Bettin Martínez) (from Live at Thalia Hall)
  10. Rosecrans (unreleased)
  11. Santee Alley (from LA LOM EP)
  12. Alacrán (single)
  13. Wilshire Western (unreleased)
  14. Dane Dane Benleri Var (Neşet Ertaş) (unreleased)
  15. Danza de LA LOM
  16. Lorena
  17. La Subienda (Senén Palacios) (unreleased)
  18. Magnolia (unreleased)
  19. 6th St. (unreleased)
  20. Astro Cumbia (unreleased)
  21. Figueroa
  22. La Danza Del Petrolero (Emerson Casanova Sanchez) (unreleased)
  23. El Cascabel (Lorenzo Barcelata) (unreleased)
  24. Encore: El Sonido de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

On, Ye Lusty Gentlemen: Sam Shackleton Live in Manchester

February 10, 2026 /

Friday 6th February 2026

Gullivers, Manchester, England

“But he that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet, ACT 1, SCENE 4, 119-120

Mere seconds into the night of music and the touchpaper is already lit. In what surely ranks as the most triumphant performance by an opening act I’ve yet seen, Dan MacDonald climbs onto the stage of the packed room above Gullivers bar and, without so much as a ‘hello’, begins strumming lustily on his acoustic guitar. He tears through a sea shanty in a fine, high-spirited voice, his hair flopping as he plays.

By the time the chorus comes around a second time the boisterous Friday-night crowd is already fully committed. “Hi ho, hi ho, we’re bound for Callao,” the crowd roars, swaying back and forth to the shanty. The American on the stage breaks into a grin, one that matches the one of the Halloween pumpkin on his orange shirt. He’s pleased that his kindling has immediately caught fire. “I should quit now!” he jokes at song’s end. “I don’t think it gets better than that song!”

It’s a stirring start, and one the musician is keen to continue. He picks up a fiddle, and while his second song, ‘Right Misty Day’, is slower and more delicate than its predecessor, the crowd stomps its feet in time and loudly cheers its end. “I made it, mom!” Dan shouts. “We all made it. We all did this together.”

It’s an unexpected triumph. I didn’t know what to expect from the opener coming into the night, but it wasn’t the bright cluster of winsome folk songs that the Michigan native is currently delivering. His stage name, Spitzer Space Telescope, might bring to mind a zany prog-rock band or hidden-away electronica project, but the music is anything but. He has eight songs in his half-hour set tonight, and while I’m not yet familiar enough with his music to place a few of his songs – including that opening ‘Bound for Callao’, which stays stuck in my head for days after – I resolve that I will be.

The songs are quality, the performances even more so. His third song, ‘Kayne in the Orchard’, about his memories of doing seasonal work on a cider farm in Cornwall, is delivered a cappella, as is a fifth song I cannot source, and both hold the audience transfixed throughout. His fourth and sixth songs, ‘Old Lazarus’ Harp’ and ‘Rovin’ is Me Pleasure’ are faster numbers, with foot stomps accompanying Dan’s fiddle and guitar respectively.

After another short fiddle tune, Dan launches lustily into his final ‘Midwest Tribute Song’. Deserved cheers again greet its end, and another cheer is raised as he walks back through the crowd. Spitzer Space Telescope has been everything you want an opener to be and more; he has whipped up the crowd and prepared the ground for the main act, while compelling you to remember the name once the night is out, for his is music you should explore as the first priority. It’s a fitting performance, because I only became aware of tonight’s main act, Sam Shackleton, after he opened for Oliver Anthony in September. If Sam was a revelation that night, a sort of Scottish Nick Shoulders leading me to be here at Gullivers tonight, then Dan is a similar revelation.

In the half-hour wait between the end of the opening set and Sam Shackleton’s arrival on stage, the music coming from the soundsystem returns. There’s been Bill Withers, Dire Straits, a plethora of Creedence songs. And Bob Dylan.

Dylan’s is a name that occurs to me frequently tonight. Not because I would be foolish enough to compare his songwriting genius to either of tonight’s musicians – most of Sam’s setlist tonight is made up of traditional songs, although his few self-penned ones are perfectly respectable – but because listening to Spitzer Space Telescope and Sam Shackleton tonight has that same folk power you feel when listening to early Dylan or Baez or the other champions of the folk revival. The hearty folk melodies. The lusty singing. For Sam the bold harmonica and for Dan the piercing fiddle, and for both the rhythmic strumming of guitar strings that sounds like a knock on the door that houses the troubadours of old, and bids them come forth. As the crowd stomps on the floor of the room above Gullivers bar tonight, and the guitar chords strum confidently from the stage, one could quite easily imagine this selfsame scene taking place in barrooms across our isles at any point in the last few hundred years. Only the occasional flash of a mobile phone reminds you that the year is 2026.

When Sam Shackleton does take the stage, bumping shoulders with me as he walks through the front of the crowd, it’s for what is only his second-ever headline show in England. (The first was twenty-four hours earlier, in London.) As he says nearly two hours later, towards the end of his impressive set, he’s starting to try doing his own headline shows after years of opening. On this evidence, he’ll be a success. The Manchester crowd loves him.

Sometimes it loves him a bit too much. It’s no Ball of Kerrymuir, but a few times when introducing his songs Sam is knocked out of his stride by drunken hecklers crossing the line from enthusiastic shouting to obnoxious yelling and Main Character Syndrome. He deals with it genially each time in his warm Scottish brogue – “I’ll forgive ya, maybe not a second time”; “Alright, that’s the last one”; “that’s lovely, my friend” – but it’s clear he knows the culprits have given themselves too long a leash. After one particularly banal bout of chanting from a woman near the front, a weary male cry comes up from towards the back of the room. “Ah, shuddup,” the voice says, and the room murmurs in agreement. “Well, he said it,” Sam smiles, diplomatically letting the hecklers know which side he’s on.

In truth, even in their excess the hecklers can’t disrupt the night too much, because a set of raucous folk songs sung in a thick Scottish accent is pretty much guaranteed to rattle heartily along the rails, even while the music is strong enough to ensure it doesn’t careen off them entirely. ‘Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie’, Sam’s opening song, sets the tone. Delivered a cappella by Sam with a pint of Guinness in hand, he tolls a simple drumbeat with the pedalboard at his feet. This percussion can be heard throughout the night, save for when it is outmatched by the foot-stomping of the crowd.

Sam follows the song with two of his staples, the murder ballad ‘Eggs and Marrowbone’ and ‘The Overgate’, a “failed love song”, on his acoustic guitar. But it’s his lesser-known picks of traditional songs that stand out in the first part of his set; the “sailing ballad” ‘Banks of Newfoundland’ and ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’, and the wonderful Rabbie Burns-penned ‘Green Grow the Rashes O’. The Scotsman will be devastated to learn it’s not the best Rabbie Burns I’ve ever heard, nor even the best I’ve heard at Gullivers – that honour remains with Toria Wooff’s stunning version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ here just a couple of months ago – though it’s a fine display of balladry regardless.

If the elfin Toria could stun the Gullivers crowd into silence – in what must be a first for the song, we all forgot to sing along to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – Sam’s invocation of Scotland’s national poet is, at the very least, saving him a wee bit of money. After his performance of ‘Ye Scottish by Name’, which reimagines Burns’ ‘Ye Jacobites by Name’ as a song about modern Scottish independence, a bald, bearded man who had left and returned to the front row passes a glass up to the raised stage.

“Oh, a pint of Guinness, I’ll accept that,” Sam says in surprise. “That’s one interruption I don’t mind at all.” The man in question can be found dancing and pumping his fists at the front all night, showing that enthusiastic engagement with the music can be done right without disruption to anyone else’s vibe. At the end of the night, Sam will lean down and chat with his beverage-bunging benefactor, handing him a requested setlist.

In a fine foreshadowing of where the night is heading, Sam roars lustily through the “Glasgow street song” ‘Johnny Laddie’, inciting a boozy singalong from a crowd which is only increasing in energy and raucous temper. As he sets his guitar against a stack of plastic crates and picks up his banjo, the crates collapse. His scheme to use them as an improvised guitar stand gang agley, he recovers to lead the crowd steadily through the banjo-backed beat of ‘Sweet Snowy North’ and ‘The Lone Prairie’, showcasing his winning synergy of native folk flavours with their American cousins.

The banjo becomes more propulsive on ‘Wild Bill Jones’, before rearing up for the slower, pensive, almost waltz-like ‘The Butcher Boy’, a “sad song about suicide”. Sam’s plaintive whistles accentuate its lonesome sound.

“I promise that’s as miserable as it gets,” Sam says after the song ends. “It’s only up from here after that one.” And he’s not wrong, for next up are the three best performances of the night. He introduces ‘Tramps and Hawkers’ as one of his favourite Scottish ballads, and it’s another lusty, propulsive song well-judged for this stage of the setlist. The crowd is only too happy to singalong to the chorus once they pick it up.

It’s followed by yet another lusty singalong, this time to ‘Gambling Davey’, with Sam recapturing the same propulsive beat he has just let go in ‘Tramps and Hawkers’. Sam says he forgot to sing it in London the night before and a man came up and said he was sad he hadn’t played it. There’s no such disappointment in Manchester as the Gullivers crowd claps and stomps, and perhaps the loudest cheers of the night greet its end.

The best song, however, is about to arrive. As we enter the endgame, Sam Shackleton straps one of those harmonica contraptions to his chest. “This is the latter stage of my set now,” he says. “So I’m gonna play you some belters.”

In a break from what’s come before, Sam now plays some of his own self-penned tunes, starting with what I consider his best – and the best song on the night, too. Trading banjo for the insistent strumming of his acoustic guitar, and now accompanied by a stirring harmonica sound, Sam summons forth the fatalistic and foreboding ‘Weary Rambler’.

It’s an exciting indication of where this young Scotsman may yet roam with his talent, followed by the similarly-excellent ‘The Blackest Crow’ and the crowd-pleasing singalong ‘Scottish Cowboy’. He admits he ought to start playing more of his own songs in his sets, and the crowd agrees. Someone shouts for his ‘Pink Collar Blues’ – “that’s actually coming”, he says, “so you’re good” – and while he doesn’t play the requested ‘Summer Sailor’, he does play the similar ‘Song to a King’.

Shortly before he plays ‘Pink Collar Blues’ to end his set, a cathartic song about punching your employer when you’re in a shit job, he’s inundated with more such requests. “That’s a good one too,” he says diplomatically. “I gotta start writing these down.” He pauses. “Actually, I have. They’re my own songs, aren’t they? Hmm.” As the crowd laughs, one hopes that he has gained encouragement from these requests, even if tonight’s 11pm curfew means he can’t fulfil them. Now that Sam is beginning to blossom as a headline act, the expanded setlists might mean his own songwriting has space to grow. One hopes he recognises it. He could rove far.

But for now, it’s the traditional songs which form the tried-and-true backbone of his set. He introduces ‘Old Rosin the Bow’ by name, drawing an audible gasp from a handsome blonde woman near the front. And after hiding comically behind the stage’s dark green curtain as the crowd shouts for an encore (“How fuckin’ stupid was tha’?” he says when he returns. “That’s what every encore is, really.”), it is the traditional songs that carry us home.

Sam doesn’t play one of my favourite folk songs among those he’s been known to cover, ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ (a song enjoying a new lease of life lately due to its use in the Oscar-nominated From Dusk Till Dawn remake Sinners), but instead he ends with the on-the-nose political song ‘All You Fascists’ and finally returns, of course, to Rabbie Burns.

There comes, at the death, the first and only boos of the night – and only because Sam has announced to the buzzing crowd that “this is the last song of the night”.

“That’s OK,” he laughs among the ironic boos. “I’ll take that.”

And with that he picks up his banjo for his final song, ‘MacPherson’s Rant’ by the ubiquitous Burns. “Play a tune and we’ll dance to the moon ‘neath the gallows tree,” he sings to end this special Friday evening at Gullivers bar. It’s a fitting coda to the night, a rousing, high-spirited singalong as the voices of Sam Shackleton and his rowdy crowd “set MacPherson free”.

Setlist:

(all songs are traditional folk songs of unknown authorship, unless noted)

  1. Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie (Robert Burns) (unreleased)
  2. Eggs and Marrowbone (unreleased)
  3. The Overgate (single)
  4. Green Grow the Rashes O (Burns) (unreleased)
  5. Banks of Newfoundland (unreleased)
  6. Fair and Tender Ladies (unreleased)
  7. Ye Scottish by Name (Burns/Traditional) (from Scottish Folk Ballads of Freedom)
  8. Johnny Laddie (from Scottish Folk)
  9. Sweet Snowy North (from Scottish Cowboy Ballads & Early American Folk Songs)
  10. The Lone Prairie (single)
  11. Wild Bill Jones (single)
  12. The Butcher Boy (from Scottish Cowboy)
  13. Tramps and Hawkers (Jimmie Henderson/Traditional) (from Scottish Folk)
  14. Gambling Davey (from Causeway Recordings)
  15. Weary Rambler (Sam Shackleton) (from Causeway)
  16. The Blackest Crow (from Scottish Cowboy)
  17. Scottish Cowboy (Shackleton) (from Causeway)
  18. Song to a King (Shackleton) (from Green and Yellow)
  19. Old Rosin the Bow (from Scottish Cowboy)
  20. Pink Collar Blues (Shackleton) (from Causeway)
  21. Encore: All You Fascists (Woody Guthrie) (unreleased)
  22. Encore: MacPherson’s Rant (Burns/Traditional) (from Scottish Folk)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Panners of Gold: John R. Miller Live in Manchester

January 26, 2026 /

Tuesday 20th January 2026

The Lodge, The Deaf Institute, Manchester, England

“I just got done makin’ a new record back in August that should be out some time in the next few months,” John R. Miller says from the second stage of the Deaf Institute in Manchester, shortly after his fourth song, ‘Smokestacks on the Skyline’. “Gonna be playin’ some new songs this evening if that’s OK. Basically, if you’re familiar with some of the stuff and there’s somethin’ that you wanna hear and it doesn’t look like we’re gonna do it, just say somethin’ and we’ll do our very best.”

It’s an offer that the crowd of fifty to sixty people take to heart, for the rest of the night is peppered with enthusiastic cries for every Miller-milled song ever pressed to vinyl, and not just the fan-favourites. (“Faustina!”, one woman shouts.) “Ooh,” Miller says sharply after someone requests ‘Dollar Store Tents’, with the same I-might-have-overdone-it look on his face you’d get from someone who’s picked up a heavy box and heard their back go ‘click’.

“Did I say that right?” the woman asks.

“Yes, you did!” Miller replies, pleasantly surprised at the knowledge of his songs, here on the right side of the Atlantic. He laughs, before lapsing into the warm, befuddled, almost Tom Waits-ian mumble he’s charmed us with all night. “Ah well, I came all this way…” he muses, accepting the challenge. “Why not forget a bunch of words, in front of a whole bunch of strangers?” The crowd laughs, and after Miller promises “we’re gonna do our best,” he says “Tom says he’s gonna sneak his way into this one.”

Tom is J. Tom Hnatow (pronounced ‘Nay-toe’), the electric guitarist whose tones and bended notes bring so much to Miller’s sound tonight, adding a loose, laidback mix of J.J. Cale-esque country blues to Miller’s John Prine-esque melodies. From my vantage point from stage-right, Tom is almost completely hidden from view, though I can certainly hear his influence on the night.

That said, my sight of Miller himself is little better. The Lodge, the name for this bar-room that serves as the Deaf Institute’s second venue room (the dull thud of the music in the main room upstairs can occasionally be heard through the ceiling), does not have a raised stage, and Miller decides to remain seated throughout. It’s also standing-room only, aside from those early-birds like myself who are able to clamber atop a raised platform near to the sound deck. But even from this elevated perspective the view is limited, and my visual impressions of the night are limited to the occasional glimpse of a blue checked shirt and the thick-bearded head of Miller moving back and forth under a forest-green cap.

It doesn’t matter a damn, for the sound and the atmosphere is the key for a memorable night tonight. After opener Jacob Coley provides a dreamy soundscape of his own, facilitated by the guitarist Jack Boles and songs with the swirling strength of ‘Treading Water’ – a closer that’s officially released as a single at midnight the same night – Miller and Hnatow lay down their own genial, swampy country blues sound.

The music rolls, never plunging nor raising high. The only two exceptions come later in the night: the fast-paced rockabilly of ‘Conspiracies, Cults & UFOs’ which ends the set, and ‘Forgiven and Forgotten’, which in its composition would reveal itself as tonight’s only song not written by Miller even if Miller himself hadn’t introduced it as one penned by his friend Ward Harrison, intended for a project their band was meant to do until “half of us got fired”.

“Which half?” someone asks, and Miller grins.

“The good half!” another wag replies. Miller laughs.

“Aw, it’s all good,” he says. “We all had a little growin’ up to do, to be honest.”

The pace of these two songs aside, the eighteen songs of Miller’s set simply and wonderfully just move along, as a great river might. And like a river Miller’s music rewards, for his unassuming songwriting hides hooks and phrases and moments that seem to come out of nowhere, like flecks or nuggets of gold found in the river mud. On nights like this, the motivation of the music fan who attends the smaller gigs, supports the lesser-known artists, becomes understandable. It’s like panning for gold, and goddamn if it doesn’t feel good when you find a sizeable chunk to hold in your hands.

“Just make sure you do ‘Basements’!” one of my fellow panners of gold shouts after John R. Miller’s initial offer to play songs on request.

“All right,” Miller replies in his languid American burr. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

And in truth, it’s not only the audience who take to heart his offer. Miller’s promise to “do our very best” is a promise he fulfils before he even makes it, coming out of the blocks to open with his stellar ‘Shenandoah Shakedown’ and the wistful ‘Coming Down’, a song which once caught the ear of Tyler Childers, a man who knows a thing or two about songwriting. By the time of the third song, ‘Red Eyes’, the stage is set, with those bended electric notes from Hnatow and a simple heartbeat-like percussive sound from the pedalboard at Miller’s feet. (He also wears one of those small foot tambourines on his left boot for added percussion.)

“This is not gonna really expand very much,” Miller drawls after ‘Coming Down’, plucking on his acoustic guitar as the audience laughs. “We’re startin’ off pretty low-key. In the middle there will be some…. semblance of dynamic, and y’all can go home wondering what you were doing here.”

Following on from the known flecks of gold in ‘Red Eyes’ – “Hoping I find better soil,” runs one lyric – Miller shows there’s plenty left undiscovered in his muddy stream for those who provide ears to listen. “I feel better in the stillness, I can hear the unheard song,” he sings in his first unreleased number of the night, allowing us to hear the J. J. Cale-esque country blues vested in this unheard song. “You’re the only thing I’m doing wrong.”

After this taste of the unknown, Miller returns to the tried-and-true of ‘Lookin’ Over My Shoulder’ before making his first bold venture into audience requests. He thanks someone for reminding him of ‘Old Dance Floor’, promising that “we’ll try to stumble through it now.” But ‘stumble’ proves to be the wrong word, for Miller and his guitarist roll through the song and the rest of the night with a laidback ease.

It’s an appropriate song to announce this new, looser phase of his set, with its lines about how “I don’t have a mind for makin’ plans… But I ain’t nobody’s fool.” Miller is one of those songwriters who sounds best when they’re free and able to breathe, when they can sit down and laugh and take both requests from a warm crowd and swigs from a cold beer – and the tall green can of Heineken at his feet doesn’t look like one of those 0.0% abominations either. He’s one of those artists who sound better stripped back, unburdened, and ‘Old Dance Floor’ manages to sound better here with only Hnatow and a small gathering of Mancunians than it does with a full band on the record.

“We’re just gonna do a whole bunch of stuff that we didn’t rehearse,” Miller says to laughter, after asking Hnatow if he wants to give his ‘Half Ton Van’ song “a shot on the flat”. The obliging Tom pulls the flat guitar onto his lap to provide some country slide to the song. The choice almost trips them up, with Miller pausing and grinning towards the end of the first verse. “Hang on… So I haven’t actually sang this in a while,” he admits. When he picks it up again, the charmed audience is carried right back along, singing “does anybody want to buy a half ton van?” during its Roger Miller-esque chorus.

After obliging the crowd further with the previously-requested ‘Basements’ and the countrified “two-steppin'” tune ‘Garden of Fools’, Miller treats us to another unreleased number, an absorbing road song with a “Hail Mary” refrain that seems to make its way onto setlists under the name ‘Toll Booth’. But before it starts, there’s yet another audience request – and it’s one that Miller, even with his whole songbook in his head, could not have anticipated.

“‘Scuse me, can I put a monkey on your mike stand?” a man asks, stepping forward.

The seated Miller takes it in his stride.

“Why the hell not?” he replies. A small, plush toy simian is propped against the black joist of his microphone. “No bad time to ask me that offer,” Miller deadpans.

“It’s her dad’s Christmas present,” the man explains – as though that were enough of an explanation – while gesturing to his companion.

Miller noodles with his guitar. “Ah, I don’t know what I’m doing any more,” he says with mock-weary befuddlement.

When an artist and his audience have been bound together not only by shared warmth and laughter but by something as symbolic and sanctified as a toy monkey, the bond is unbreakable. Miller’s offer to play requests has paid dividends, and what’s more, this monkey’s paw isn’t here to curl. When Miller struggles to start the requested ‘Parking Lots’ – “Uh, what are the first words to that song?” he grins. “If I remember the original line, I promise I’ll have the whole song” – the ramshackle nature of it only makes it all the more endearing. There’s an authenticity to such an approach, suitable to a small stage in an inviting and intimate venue.

Someone with Google on their phone throws out the opening line. “Hell yeah, man!” Miller responds, before losing his way again two minutes later. “Shit, I was doing so well,” he remarks disarmingly, before joking about how “that was all I wrote about back then” when picking up for a second time the lyrics about lighting another cigarette and taking another drink. There’s much to be said for an approach like this, a bona fide troubadour coming to your town and singing a song he wrote “fifteen years ago… to keep myself fed, or at least drink”. The rough edges are what make the deepest impressions. “This town ain’t so bad, where else you gonna go?” he sings, and when it ends – or rather, survives our collective pursuit of it – ‘Parking Lots’ draws the loudest applause and cheers of the night.

It’s a satisfying moment for me, because the last time Miller came to town – opening for Tyler Childers – Manchester disgraced itself, chatting and bleating so obnoxiously that even much of Tyler’s amplified set was disrupted, and the acoustic, solo Miller was so drowned out that I remarked that it could scarcely have been more insulting if he’d had eggs thrown at him. Tonight, the fifty or sixty who fill the Lodge have redeemed the vapid locusts who spoiled that night two years ago, and not only have they provided a deserving Miller with a good memory of our city but they have ensured that the first time I’ve heard John R. Miller live – actually heard him, this time – it’s a good one. Both Miller and the crowd bring their best to Manchester tonight.

We’re treated to another new song, a clever, catchy anarcho-resistance song called ‘Cornbread and Pinto Beans’ that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and later the upbeat country blues of ‘Motor’s Fried’. “I can’t just let you guys ask for all the songs,” he says.

“Play ‘Wonderwall’!” someone shouts, cheekily.

“I was actually gonna do that, as a joke,” Miller laughs. “But I didn’t wanna piss you guys off real bad!”

“Play ‘Free Bird’!”

“Ay, ‘Wonderwall’s like your ‘Free Bird’,” Miller replies.

But he obliges one final time, not with the borrowed tunes of Skynyrd or the Gallagher brothers, but with the much-requested and twice-promised ‘Faustina’. It’s one of his best songs from a strong catalogue, and as the penultimate song in tonight’s set it’s a worthy place to end this review. Miller thanks us beforehand for coming out on a weeknight when it’s cold. Afterwards he mentions the records he has for sale, gesturing over to the merch table below me to my right.

“I’m a terrible salesperson,” he apologises, but this is not a bad thing when the world seems to be being made actively worse by salespeople and their schtick (among others, of course). At a time when many are becoming disenchanted with current events, John R. Miller arrives in England as a fine representative of his country. He is from the America that gave us Walden and ‘Whiskey River’, rather than the one that concealed carries and covets Greenland. Whatever your politics or your worldview – and Miller is non-political in his set tonight – it is rewarding to be reminded of that other side of America, an America in a blue check shirt picking tunes on a guitar, throwing back a beer and laughing and rolling through songs like he’s sitting lazily on a back porch somewhere.

“Someday, it’ll be worth the miles,” he sings on ‘Faustina’. And this was mileage worth adding tonight.

Setlist:

(all songs written by John R. Miller, unless noted)

  1. Shenandoah Shakedown (from Depreciated)
  2. Coming Down (from Depreciated)
  3. Red Eyes (from The Trouble You Follow)
  4. Smokestacks on the Skyline (from Heat Comes Down)
  5. Better in the Stillness* (unreleased)
  6. Lookin’ Over My Shoulder (from Depreciated)
  7. Old Dance Floor (from Depreciated)
  8. Half Ton Van (from Depreciated)
  9. Basements (from Heat Comes Down)
  10. Garden of Fools (from the deluxe version of Heat Comes Down)
  11. Toll Booth* (unreleased)
  12. Dollar Store Tents (from Heat Comes Down)
  13. Parking Lots (from Service Engine)
  14. Cornbread and Pinto Beans (unreleased)
  15. Forgiven and Forgotten (Ward Harrison) (from Fireside Sessions, Vol. 1)
  16. Motor’s Fried (from Service Engine / Depreciated)
  17. Faustina (from Depreciated)
  18. Conspiracies, Cults & UFOs (from Heat Comes Down)

* track title unconfirmed

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Ghost Story: Toria Wooff’s Somewhat Gothic Christmas Live in Manchester

December 21, 2025 /

Wednesday 17th December 2025

Gullivers, Manchester, England

“Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?”

Robert Burns, ‘Auld Lang Syne’

“And you ask: will I write, with you firmly in my mind?”

Toria Wooff, ‘Song for A’

The night begins with a ghost story. As the lights dim to deep shadow in the small, close ballroom above Gullivers bar in Manchester, precise, unhurried footsteps rap against the wooden floor. The Librarian of Weeping Bank is walking down the aisle between the rows of the hushed audience towards the stage. With his long, beak-like nose and distinguished hairline, dressed conservatively in a sweater vest with a large, leather-bound ledger tucked under his arm, the Librarian certainly looks the part, like a teacher or lecturer straight out of central casting. He takes a seat, opens the ledger and begins to read.

It’s all a wonderful bit of theatre as, over the next half-hour, this curator of the stories of Weeping Bank Library delivers one of those stories with the assurance of a thespian. The performance is a well-balanced one, with tasteful sound effects accompanying the Librarian’s tale; nothing excessive or cinematic, merely the occasional footstep, breath of howling wind or creaking floorboard to accentuate the mood.

For those of us seated in the front row, the shuffling of the audience behind adds even more, for it feels as though something may well be creeping up behind us. This is the Gothic style in full effect; using mood and ambience and vocabulary to ratchet up the tension of the ghost story itself – that of a babysitter who is left alone with a child in a house on the wrong side of the Weeping Bank. Or has she, as she perhaps discovers, been left alone with two?

It’s an unconventional way to begin a night of live music, but one thing (among many) that I have come to admire in a Toria Wooff concert is their singular nature. Tonight is the fifth time I’ve seen Toria live since I came across her remarkable debut album back in May, and on each occasion different songs have come to the fore and made their impression upon the night. It could be that the folk melody of ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’ grabs you; on another night it might be the soaring vulnerability of ‘See Things Through’ or ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’ which stand as the centrepiece. To see someone live five times in eight months and still find new things to uncover on each occasion is testament to both the stable of songs and the creative momentum the artist is quietly building.

And tonight is, in many ways, the most impressive Toria Wooff performance yet. Almost a year to the day since her first billed ‘Somewhat Gothic Christmas’, at a venue within spitting distance on the other side of the road, Toria pulls out all the stops to ensure there are no lumps of coal in our stockings this year; that this will be a night to remember. Many of the finest songs from her album are played impeccably tonight by her and her on-stage companion, the cellist Polly Virr, and we’re also treated to some unreleased songs from her upcoming second album, including the haunting ‘House on the Hill’, a song which takes your breath away with its immaculate, bracing air.

If that were not enough, Toria also proves, later in the night, to be one of the rare musicians who can sing the hell out of a Christmas song. There’s something about the festive period that encourages ghost stories, whether that’s the long, cold winter nights or the Victorian shadow of many of our present traditions – including the Ghost of Christmas Past from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – and Toria Wooff’s ethereal Gothic folk stylings are perfectly suited to evoke it. One hopes that her Somewhat Gothic Christmases in years yet to come will prove, by word of mouth, to be a regular and hotly-anticipated fixture on the Manchester calendar. They certainly will be on mine.

After opener Natalie Wildgoose has followed the Librarian by providing a half-dozen haunting, piano-driven laments of her own – a stark, almost avant-garde reimagination of English moorland folk – Toria Wooff takes to the stage carrying her new, custom-made Native Series acoustic guitar, accompanied by Polly and her cello. With her new guitar of English yew, she decides immediately to ring in the new, opening with the unreleased demoniac interlude ‘Black Shuck’ and ‘The Morrigan’, both of which are expected on her upcoming album in 2026.

It’s the first time I’ve heard ‘The Morrigan’, which takes the legend of a mythological Celtic goddess-queen and – ingeniously, as Toria has also done on her unreleased songs ‘House on the Hill’ and ‘The Bargain’ – universalises it. Part of its melody recalls her song ‘The Flood’, but ‘The Morrigan’ is very much its own creature. Polly’s touches on the cello are almost a second voice, a call-and-response with Toria’s own confident, hauntingly clear vocals. “I cannot wait for what she offers,” Toria sings on the unreleased song. Truer words were never spoken.

It’s a bold opening, and Toria follows it up with ‘Estuaries’, a soft, pensive song that I am used to hearing later in her live sets (no doubt due to its lyric “then you leave without saying goodbye”). Its presence here so early in the night not only speaks to the dexterity of her growing catalogue of songs, but also suggests Toria has something special planned for the end of her set.

‘Estuaries’ is followed by ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’, which in its album cut is a full-band, steel-laden number which I’d recommend to new listeners looking for a rewarding dose of folk Americana. Tonight, with Toria’s new custom tonewood accompanied only by Polly’s resonant cello, the song is stark and wounded, and afterwards we’re given some insight into why.

“You’re all very quiet,” Toria says teasingly, in her thick, warm Bolton accent. “There’s something about being seated that makes people quiet, I think.” She tells us that she wrote ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’, and the next two songs she is about to play, about her best friend Alicia. “On the topic of being quiet in this room… erm, we never were.” The crowd chuckles warmly. Gullivers bar, here in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, was “one of our haunts.” She gestures towards the back of the room. “That little, like… where it dips in the little alcove there – we used to stand there because we knew we could get away with being as disruptive as possible.”

Astute readers will notice the past tense, and this isn’t because it’s a mere act of reminiscence on Toria’s part. Alicia is indeed no longer with us, and it’s clear that Toria – who dedicated her self-titled album to her, forever linking their names together – is deeply affected by her loss to cancer five years ago. In light of this, the battling sorrow of ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’ – and other songs to come tonight – becomes even more apparent. “And all the bars that we had haunted,” she sang in ‘Lefty’. “I couldn’t go back even if I tried.”

There follows some of the most delicate, vulnerable moments of the night, as Toria navigates her way through two more songs inspired by Alicia: ‘Sweet William’ (“I remember your skin and how we fed it to the clay”) and ‘Song for A’ (“You call me up, haul me out, say you ain’t got much time left now”). ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’, the signature song that follows in their wake, may be more recognisable as a ghost story, but it is increasingly clear what ghost lingers in many of Toria’s other songs. When I remarked earlier that different songs come to the fore each time I hear Toria live, well, tonight it is the lyricism which impresses deeply – across every song.

It should be noted, at this point, that Toria Wooff is no maudlin artist. If there is a melancholy to some of her songs, it is a sadness that she has diverted, as one might a river, towards art and creation rather than bitterness and gloom. It is a hurt that inspires rather than kills a buzz. What is more, Toria allows us a release with her easy charm and humour. After another song that must surely be about Alicia, the unreleased ‘Noiselessly’ (“there’s a part of me that died when you did too… I think we’re tangled up together on every plane”), she thanks the audience for their applause. “When you like it,” she says, “it means it makes the album. It doesn’t get cut last minute.” Introducing ‘Aleister’ at this moment, another impressive unreleased song, she begins to tell us what it’s about. But there comes a noise from the back of the room, something heavy dropped on the floor with a thud louder than any of the Weeping Bank Library’s sound effects.“It doesn’t matter actually,” she laughs.

And even were the spectre of her friend not resting quietly on every song, there would still be moments that would mark the night as special. On a normal night, ‘The Flood’, which follows ‘Aleister’, would be a stand-out moment. Enthusiastic applause greets the end of a song which has threatened to burst its banks, with increasingly insistent guitar-picking from Toria and some inspired cello flourishes from Polly.

“Let’s do a poll,” Toria says, as always a warm presence on the stage. “Are you feeling more festive… or spooky?”

“Right, so shout for ‘spooky’.” There are some woos from the audience, and Toria laughs at the hesitancy. “Festive?” she asks, before bursting into laughter at the response. “That was even more hesitant!” she grins.

The ‘spooky’ option having won (for now), Toria and Polly decide to play ‘House on the Hill’, an unreleased song inspired by her “favourite book”, Susan Hill’s 1983 Gothic pastiche The Woman in Black. It’s a truly special song, one of those that just seems perfectly balanced in your mind as you hear it, and it has that feel of being the sort of song that might see this talented artist break out onto higher ground of her own. I’ve taken to referring to Toria as ‘The Woman in Black’ in my previous reviews, something which Toria tells me after the show – as usual, she generously grants her time to fans afterwards – had left her buzzing when she read it.

It’s a moniker that fits her like a glove, and not one I can claim credit for, because it’s one that Toria has earned with her own talent and blossoming creativity – as the unreleased ‘House on the Hill’ has just shown. She has embraced this Gothic folk sound and aesthetic in the last couple of years, to the point where her older material (such as a 2021 single called ‘June’, a 2019 cover of Alice Cooper’s ‘Poison’, the Badlands EP also from 2019) is either hard or outright impossible to find and listen to, even if the music that can still be sourced in some forgotten places, such as the wonderful 2021 single ‘James Edward’, is compelling to hear.

But one cannot blame her for leaving her old music behind – even as she ensures she carries the memory of old friends with her – for this new Woman in Black may well be on the cusp of something special. “We had a big gab about [Susan Hill’s novel] in the green-room,” Toria tells the audience. “And about the 1989 [television] version of it, which is just incredible. And during that chat, I realised the moment that I must have just decided where my path led in life. When I first saw HER stood in the graveyard like that” – she mimes the disturbing, rigid pose of Jennet Humfrye – “I was like: ‘THAT’S who I want to be.’ That’s a great realisation to bring in to 2026,” she laughs.

But before the New Year, and the exciting (“but stressful”) new album release that is sure to come, there is still a Christmas to celebrate – and celebrate somewhat Gothically. ‘House on the Hill’ is followed the effortlessly pleasant chords of ‘That’s What Falling in Love Will Do’. The song is marked by some electrical distortion in the speaker at Toria’s feet, and I find myself wondering if perhaps a mischievous ghost has moved from the alcove to be as disruptive as possible once again in this old haunt.

In support of this theory, the distortion stops as soon as Toria acknowledges it and smiles to Polly, and we move towards the final songs of the night. ‘See Things Through’ is one of Toria’s most remarkable productions, in which she confesses to not knowing whether she’s strong enough to ‘see things through’ even as the strength of the song and the soaring music proves that she is. The beautiful release of Polly’s cello as the song crescendos is one of the moments that I’ve come to anticipate each and every time I’ve heard the two musicians live on stage.

“I have one more song for you guys,” Toria says as she takes in the applause. “And it’s a very important song to me. When I was trying to pick a festive Christmas song, I really wanted to think about something that encapsulated what the true meaning of Christmas is. The most important thing about Christmas. And that is: The Muppets.”

The audience laughs as Toria moves to a black metal lectern at the side of the stage and shuffles through a flurry of sheet music. Her eyes light up as she finds what she’s looking for. She picks up the lectern – “Very precarious” – and places it in front of her at centre stage.

“OK. So this is genuinely what I think is the best Christmas song ever written. Maybe the best song ever written, actually.

“And it’s sung by Michael Caine, in his finest role. It’s called ‘Thankful Heart’. And there’s a little call-and-response. If you do know it, feel free to join in.”

What follows is a sweet and gentle rendition of the Muppets song, with Toria’s voice the purest I’ve ever heard it, innocent and childlike while deftly avoiding even the hint of twee or festive syrup. Polly smiles warmly, her cello itself almost a call-and-response to Toria’s singing. As absurd as it may sound to anyone who is not here to experience it, Toria is not wrong in believing this captures the spirit of Christmas. Her breathless melody “with a thankful heart” reminds everyone in the room of the warmth of the winter season, a glow that comes from sharing life with other people that we all accepted intuitively as children but forget as we grow older. This serene joy does not banish or conquer the sadness which Toria has acknowledged in other songs tonight, but instead shows how light can exist alongside darkness; how they are not even two sides of the same coin but exist in one permeable area, like rain falling into the ocean, and only by embracing both can you find a way forward. Toria can sing of her loss and her pain even as she can sing, now, of “how precious life can be” and how “even if we part, I will hold you close with a thankful heart.”

The audience, hushed throughout, breaks into deserved applause at the song’s end. The applause continues as Toria leaves the stage and morphs into shouts for an encore. Toria obligingly returns to rejoin Polly and jokes, “We’re going to do the whole of The Muppets. I’ll be Michael Caine.”

Instead, she shuffles through the sheet music again and places a piece of paper on the lectern. “Right, ok. We’re going to do a little singalong. It’s not going to be fun and cheery – it’s a Robert Burns poem. I think it’s actually a funeral song. And it’s technically not a Christmas song either – it’s a New Year’s song. So have a little sing together. You guys can sing the chorus with me.”

What follows stuns those of us in the audience so much that we all forget to sing along. ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is a song so ubiquitous at this time of year that we can often forget the latent power of it – but not tonight. On a night of timeless folk music penned almost exclusively by herself, this is the perfect capstone: Toria Wooff playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as though it were written just yesterday, pulled from fresh soil.

Toria’s own heartache and loss finds expression in the song, and when she sings “And surely you will buy a pint, and surely I’ll buy mine; We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne”, we know whose name puts power behind it. In ‘Thankful Heart’, Toria sang of how “if you need to know the measure of a man, you simply count his friends,” but in ‘Auld Lang Syne’ she shows that friendship is not measured only in number but in depth, and if Alicia experienced this quality of friendship and love from such a remarkable artist, she must have been a blessèd lady indeed, for all her woe.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? I debate whether I should even write any of this, for it is not my story to share. But I have witnessed an artist with emotional bravery tonight, and at moments, watching her closely on the stage, it has been as though Toria might waver, that the gestures to the alcove at the back of the room, or ‘Song for A’ and ‘Sweet William’ reverberating from the walls of their old haunt, might be too much to bear.

But her performance tonight, her decision to turn pain and loss into art and beauty, is worth noting for posterity. For Toria seems to know – intuitively, if not consciously – that the ghost story she carries along with her is not a curse. In true Gothic fashion, the darkness is a harbour; not only a place of shelter for the memories of Christmas Past but a place for the Ghosts of Christmases Yet to Come to gather and find their path forward.

Toria’s performance tonight is not merely admirable, but the epitome of true artistic expression: to roll back Death, even while inviting one’s ghosts inside and making peace with them. This Woman in Black bears her loss far less malevolently than the one of Susan Hill’s creation, choosing instead to respond to hardship with life and increasingly impressive art – sweet Williams planted in black and tilled soil.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Tonight, Toria Wooff has given Rabbie Burns’ rhetorical question a definitive answer.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Toria Wooff and written by Toria Wooff, unless noted)

  1. Black Shuck (unreleased)
  2. The Morrigan (unreleased)
  3. Estuaries
  4. Lefty’s Motel Room
  5. Sweet William
  6. Song for A
  7. The Waltz of Winter Hey
  8. Noiselessly (unreleased)
  9. Aleister (unreleased)
  10. The Flood
  11. House on the Hill (unreleased)
  12. That’s What Falling in Love Will Do
  13. See Things Through
  14. Thankful Heart (Paul Williams) (unreleased)
  15. Encore: Auld Lang Syne (Robert Burns/Traditional) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

The Warmth of Oblivion: Edith Pageaud Live in Manchester

December 14, 2025 /

Tuesday 9th December 2025

Hallé at St. Michael’s, Manchester, England

The passage to oblivion is, in some ways, uneventful. No sooner have I arrived at St. Michael’s – a converted 19th-century Catholic church now serving as one of the smaller event halls owned by the Hallé Orchestra – than I am through its rustic, unattended front door and taking a seat in the third row. The evening is dark but it is even darker inside, the lights dim and close in both the foyer and the main hall where the audience begins to congregate. The most prominent light is the warm orange emitting from the stagelights, beneath which a single chair stands empty and anticipating.

There are still a couple of seats free in the front row, but I make no attempt to move towards them. For in truth, I feel like a bit of an imposter here. Two men seated behind me talk freely about the classical pieces they hope to hear tonight, including Piazzolla’s ‘Oblivion’, and while I’ve heard tonight’s artist play the song on one of the YouTube videos that first drew me to her music, I’m not sure I’d have the ear to pick it out, let alone opine on the nuances of its various performances the way those within earshot of me do so tonight.

This is my first concert of classical music, and one which I have attended on a whim. The algorithm – which, for all its sins, is wont to do this from time to time – had just a few weeks earlier shown me some videos of Edith Pageaud playing a classical guitar – beautiful, restful music amongst beautiful, restful settings. It was serendipitous that she would shortly be visiting my city, and I decided to attend. I was slightly daunted, however, because for the last few years I have been in the habit of writing reviews of each concert I attend, and I knew that I would have to either break with this habit or risk offering valueless comments on a form of music that I know even less about than the country, roots and rock music I usually write about.

Happily, I find in Edith Pageaud tonight a gentle and willing teacher. Dressed in a charming black evening gown with a black ruff around her neck to keep out the cold of the North of England in December, the strikingly beautiful young Frenchwoman takes her seat under the warm orange stagelight and drapes a black cloth across her lap. Resting her classical guitar against the cloth, she begins to play, her red hair falling over her face.

Over the next seventy-five minutes, Edith performs – but also teaches. With an engaging light humour delivered in a sweet and strong French accent (though in impeccable English), she introduces each of the pieces she plays with a comment or two on its provenance, syncopation or arrangement, such as how a piece originally written for the cello, which with its bow can easily glide across various notes, is rearranged for guitare classique by the use of tremolo, a sequence of rapid notes on the guitar which Edith then deploys masterfully on the music in question. She highlights some of the nuances of the pieces to watch out for before she plays them, and in this way she bridges the vast gap between my shallow pool of knowledge of classical guitar music and my deep enjoyment of it tonight.

I make the decision early on that I cannot adequately chronicle the night: not only had the promoter politely requested no photography but, more importantly, I lack sufficient knowledge of the music for any notes I would make on my phone worthwhile. Indeed, I take out my phone only once – to make sure it is on silent. To interact with it any more on a night of such refined and cerebral music seems like sacrilege.

It means that the short night passes by as some sort of fever dream. My recollections lack substance, at least for the purposes of a useful review, and the setlist I include at the bottom of this page is an incomplete hodgepodge of the official programme for the night and some other specific pieces I recall hearing.

But it does mean that I do become more involved in the night itself. Free of my self-imposed desire to make my own notes, to record and write and diarise, I surrender to the notes of Edith Pageaud’s guitar, and the silence between those notes. As Edith’s hands move across the neck and body of her guitar, ceaselessly weaving the night, I am privileged to hear arrangements of Schubert and Philip Glass and the Spanish guitars of the Argentines.

Some are arrangements created by others and played amply by Edith; Scarlatti’s ‘Sonata K. 466’ and Messiaen’s ‘Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus’ being especial highlights. Others are arrangements made by Edith herself, such as her impressive guitar arrangement of Rachmaninov’s ‘Prélude in C-Sharp Minor’ and Biber’s ‘Passacaglia’, which was the first arresting song I heard from Edith online and which drew me here tonight.

And there is, of course, Piazzolla’s ‘Oblivion’. I don’t know what the two men behind me make of it, or how it compares to the other times they’ve heard the piece. I myself cannot comment on its nuances, beyond what Edith herself generously highlighted to me and the rest of the audience before she began to play.

But I also learn that it does not matter. For all that this music is a cerebral force, requiring patience, application and an appreciation of quietude from its listeners, it is also music that, in the capable hands of Edith Pageaud, I can allow to just flow over me without thought or worry. Music is the universal language, the oldest one we know. The ancient cavemen of Lascaux would be moved by this music, were they able to be here tonight, just as my own uncultured mind can travel through the chords and be soothed without any of the more nuanced appreciation possessed by other attendees tonight.

Music runs deep, oblivious to the barriers we place with theory and culture and thought. And music is not just heard or seen, but felt; in light, in atmosphere and circumstance. As Edith Pageaud sits on the stage against a curtain of royal blue, beautiful and concentrating on the notes of ‘Oblivion’ she plays on her guitar beneath the warm orange stagelight, I can sink, thoughtless, into the warmth of oblivion and be moved by the music that resounds there.

Setlist:

  1. Glassworks: 1. Opening (Philip Glass, arr. Vladan Miladinovic)
  2. Introduction et Rondo Brillant (Johann Kaspar Mertz)
  3. Zer Guten Nacht, D. 903 (Franz Schubert, arr. Edith Pageaud)
  4. Aufenthalt (Schubert, arr. Mertz)
  5. Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus (Olivier Messiaen, arr. Matias Tozzola)
  6. Passacaglia (Heinrich Biber, arr. Pageaud)
  7. Prélude in C-Sharp Minor (Sergei Rachmaninov, arr. Pageaud)
  8. Étude Op. 8 No. 12 (Alexander Scriabin, arr. Pageaud)
  9. Sonata K. 24 (Carlos Seixas)
  10. Sonata K. 466 (Domenico Scarlatti)
  11. Oblivion (Astor Piazzolla, arr. Roland Dyens)
  12. El Bien Perdido (Atahualpa Yupanqui)
  13. Los Caujaritos (Ignacio Figueredo)
  14. Passacaille (Alexandre Tansman)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

A Cuckoo in the Nest: Listening to Sierra Ferrell Live in Manchester

December 7, 2025 /

Wednesday 3rd December 2025

Co-Op Live, Manchester, England

Towards the end of her short opening set, Sierra Ferrell invites Marcus Mumford and Ben Lovett out onto the stage to join her and her band. “That’s what we’re here for,” says a runty man stood in the crowd behind me, and no doubt he speaks, albeit too rudely, for many of the 20,000 people here who have filtered into the Co-Op Live arena in Manchester to hear Mumford and Sons, tonight’s headliners.

But he doesn’t speak for me. I wager there are a few others like me, scattered throughout the arena like cuckoos in the nest, who have made their way here tonight with the sole desire to hear Miss Sierra sing. I last heard her live in June of 2022, a short pilgrimage over to Liverpool to witness this small wonder of the modern world; it was so wondrous an experience that it moved me to write for the first time about music, in a review I wrote of the night. It’s a habit I’ve continued, for forty gigs since that night at the Future Yard in Birkenhead, but with no opportunity to write again about Sierra. Aside from a few festival appearances, this is the first time she’s returned to English shores, and I decide that even if it’s as an opener rather than a deserved headliner, I’m going to savour every moment. It has been, you could say, a long time coming.

More than three years after she cast her pretty magic spell in Birkenhead, Sierra Ferrell now appears on the stage in Manchester, an apparition in a fetching purple Victorian dress and matching vintage hat, looking like she is about to walk into 221b Baker Street to enquire about the services of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Sierra’s costuming eccentricities have become a key feature of her live shows; the last time I saw her, her hair was bedight with flowers, but tonight the flowers are confined to a large, vivid bouquet placed before her on the stage.

Preceding Sierra’s arrival are the five men of her band, all in matching white patterned shirts and black neckties, looking for all the world like an old-timey country band. On Sierra’s right, closest to my side of the stage where I view from near the front of the pit, Oliver Bates Craven sets himself with fiddle in hand. He’ll also switch to electric guitar at some points in the band’s set. Behind him, Matty Meyer is seated on the drums, next to Geoff Saunders on bass (both electric and upright). On the other side – next to an oversized bass drum which looms like Chekhov’s gun, ‘Heavy Petal Music’ written in large yellow letters on the drumskin – Mike Robinson fills in on acoustic guitar, banjo, dobro and pedal steel. Before him, Joshua Rilko – who, like Oliver and Geoff, is a familiar face by Sierra’s side – carries a mandolin. Completing the old-timey look, all five men are in white hats, aside from Joshua in black.

For their first number, Sierra joins Oliver’s fiddle with one of her own, leading the introductory notes of ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’ as Geoff runs a bow across his upright bass. Sierra Ferrell begins to sing – a sentence I’ve been waiting to write again for more than three years – her voice coming in high and strong and pure. I realise that for many of the people here tonight, this will be the first time they’ve heard that voice. While we’re only treated to nine songs from Sierra tonight, we’re blessed for each and every one of them.

This triumphant opener is followed by ‘Jeremiah’, one of Sierra’s signature songs and an opportunity for the band to really find their groove. Joshua moves to banjo and Mike bends some notes on a dobro, Sierra spinning carefree in a circle as they play. She’s a star in the making, as natural and at ease in this arena of 20,000 as she was in front of the few hundred at the Future Yard in 2022. It’s in this song that I make my peace with Sierra only being an opening act tonight; this is her crowd, for these nine songs, and she glides through it all with us in the palm of her hand.

‘Jeremiah’ is followed by ‘Bells of Every Chapel’, its title announced lustily by Sierra, with Mike switching to pedal steel to give yet more authentic country feel to the band’s sound. But despite their look and the instruments they have to hand, Sierra Ferrell and her band are no hidebound purists or retro tricksters. They prove this in their next song, with the drum patter and dirty electric guitar of ‘Why’d Ya Do It?’ a cool change of pace that surely slays any remaining sceptics among the mainstream Mumford fans tonight that this is a gal to reckon with.

Joshua’s mandolin begins the next song, ‘Years’, the only song tonight that isn’t penned by Sierra herself. It’s a cover of a John Anderson song that Sierra has made her own since she recorded it for a tribute album a few years ago. It suits her voice perfectly as, sans instrument, she picks up the microphone and strolls to the front of the stage to sing. She gestures tears from her eyes and dances snakily to the lyric “like the wind”, but as with all things Sierra it’s the vocal performance which is the most impressive. With harmonies from the men in the band, Sierra’s voice fills the arena – something it feels like it has always been destined to do. Her haunting woos resound as the song draws to a close and the lights go out to a rising applause.

Next up, a real boon for the cuckoos in this nest as we are treated to an unreleased song that Sierra, back behind her acoustic guitar, announces as ‘Kickin’ Up Dust’. It’s a wonderful country song, sincere and homespun and played straight, reminiscent of Dolly Parton as Sierra sings “Put one foot in front of the other/That’s the way it always goes/One thing leads to another/Kickin’ up dust on a hardwood floor.” The band plays it with a sort of easy, laid-back zest, almost like the way an old favourite or well-known standard would be played. It’s an uncanny sensation, as the song, while new and unheard, sounds like a rediscovered classic. It settles in all snug and nice.

A big cheer erupts as Sierra now invites Marcus Mumford and Ben Lovett onto the stage for what will be one of her best-received songs of the night – and not just because of the added star power. ‘American Dreaming’ is, I confess, not a song that’s hit me all that strongly before, but its wistful verses and anthemic chorus are ideal for a live setting. Marcus in particular seems glad to be here, bouncing out onto the stage and hugging Sierra. With Ben behind him on accordion, Marcus is relaxed and grinning behind his electric guitar, revelling in this opportunity to harmonise with Sierra as she stands with a microphone in one hand and a sprig of flowers in the other and sings. At the end, as the crowd cheers, he blows her a kiss and bows theatrically to her talent.

The goodwill spreads, with Sierra introducing her penultimate song, ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ – Marcus and Ben having now left the stage – with some simple, earnest thoughts on spirituality and loving one another. ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ is a well-judged song for this stage of the night, an easy, rolling pop number that still allows space for Sierra’s impressive vocals.

All too soon, we’re into the final song of Sierra’s set – a big finale. The big Heavy Petal Music bass drum, which has been cocked like Chehkov’s gun at the back of the stage, is now rolled up to the front and fired. Sierra begins banging on it rhythmically with a large gong mallet drumstick, her hips shaking in time as she begins howling the opening notes of ‘Fox Hunt’. Behind her, Geoff Saunders leads a willing audience in clapping their hands to the beat.

As the song builds, Sierra yells and picks up her fiddle, joining its sound to Oliver’s own fiddle. The band crashes into the music and Sierra begins to sing. ‘Fox Hunt’ has always been a barnstormer, and tonight it’s evidence of how far Sierra has come and how much potential is in her music. I had heard this footstomping crowd-pleaser back in 2022 among the few hundred people at that live gig in Liverpool, and it’s only grown in strength since then, filling this arena of 20,000 with a raucous, driving sound that morphs from fiddle hoedown to a snarling rock jam. There’s no space so large that Sierra’s sound can’t fill it perfectly.

It’s a thrilling moment, and also rather bittersweet for me, as not only do I know it marks the end of Sierra’s set – hopefully it won’t be another three years before I experience it again – but because it hints at the potential of how powerful a full headline arena set from Sierra Ferrell could be. We’ve had an abridged version tonight, a little big show from the band, but it would be fantastic to hear this blossom as a full set.

Forty-five minutes is not enough to hear such a special talent. While Sierra’s strategy of opening for Mumford and Sons, an established act, in order to grow her own audience here in the UK is an understandable one (and kudos to Mumford and Sons for giving her the platform), I do wonder if she’s not spreading herself too thin with her frequent mainstream collaborations and guest spots; if perhaps she would not be better served by visiting the UK more regularly to build her own following and thereby reaching arena-level crowds as a headliner, the way Tyler Childers and Billy Strings – who played the O2 and the Royal Albert Hall in the last couple of months, respectively – have done over the last few years. She certainly has the talent and potential for it, a natural star who has not only penned a solid stable of her own songs but who is one of those artists you love to hear interpret the material of others. I don’t know how the music business works, of course, and no doubt I speak from ignorance, but having seen Tyler and Billy graduate to the biggest arenas as headliners this year, I listen to Sierra bang the drum on ‘Fox Hunt’ tonight and know without a shadow of a doubt that she could do the same. I’d wager she’s done much to win over some new fans tonight, but those of us already under her spell know she deserves a night of her own.

‘Fox Hunt’ ends with a big finish, the petite purple lady on stage a force of nature as she stretches her arms wide with fiddle in hand and sings. As the crowd roars its applause with an enthusiasm usually reserved for a headliner, she makes sure to thank each member of her band by name.

But one name that won’t be forgotten is Sierra’s own. She will come back out again later in the night during Mumford’s set – after yet another costume change – to duet on ‘Here’ with a pink flower in her hand, but her work is already done. As she leaves the stage following her forty-five minute opening blitz and the crowd buzzes with energy, I realise I’m no longer a cuckoo in the nest, but just one more fan among a crowd of Sierra Ferrell’s thralls. She’s cast her pretty magic spell once again. Everyone else awaits the arrival of Mumford and his sons, but for me the night is already blissfully complete.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Trail of Flowers and written by Sierra Ferrell, unless noted)

  1. I Could Drive You Crazy
  2. Jeremiah (from Long Time Coming)
  3. Bells of Every Chapel (Ferrell/Oliver Bates Craven) (from Long Time Coming)
  4. Why’d Ya Do It? (from Long Time Coming)
  5. Years (John Anderson/Dan Auerbach/David Ferguson/Patrick James McLaughlin) (from Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson)
  6. Kickin’ Up Dust (unreleased)
  7. American Dreaming (Ferrell/Melody Walker)
  8. Dollar Bill Bar (Ferrell/Walker)
  9. Fox Hunt

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Journey Into the Childerswald: Tyler Childers Live in London

November 23, 2025 /

Saturday 15th November 2025

O2 Arena, London, England

schilderwald (noun)

a “forest of signs”, a place overwhelmed by directions and signs competing for attention

Heading south on a train out of Manchester once again, I pass the now-familiar sight of the Jodrell Bank observatory, its 250-foot white dish trained at the gloomy stormswept sky. The iconic radio telescope has become a familiar sign on my increasingly frequent journeys to London; as a casual science buff it’s a welcome early treat as the rail takes me to the capital, and on my return journeys it becomes my very own Angel of the North, a sign that I will soon arrive at the comforts of home.

The train passes the great white dish slower than usual, a speed limit imposed as a consequence of delays and damage to the railway line by Storm Claudia sweeping over the country. Its ear cupped skywards, the radio telescope has long been used to observe stars and pulsars and further our understanding of the universe. It has searched for signs of extra-terrestrial life. At the dawn of the Space Age, it diligently tracked Sputnik in its flight. But soon the train trundles past, and all this passes from my mind. For today my thoughts are trained London-wards, my ears directed towards a rather different star.

Because, like it or not, Tyler Childers is a ‘star’ now. Some fans are disappointed by this; they are pushed away or leave, disenchanted, for various reasons. But other ones take their place. The fanbase grows, the faces change; even the face of Tyler, with his youthful and clean-shaven look tonight a commendable change from the grungy, bearded hellraiser of what many consider his ‘peak’ years. From the stage of the O2 Arena tonight – capacity 20,000 – he remarks that the first time he played in London, not a great many years ago, it was to eight people – “including my road manager” – in the Slaughtered Lamb pub.

To my surprise, at the end of the night I leave the gig in an odd state of mind, unsure of how I have felt about it all. It has been a warm, energetic performance, and Tyler and his band really put on a show. And yet, something about it, or at least my experience of it, has felt a tad hollow. I would fully encourage those reading this review to listen to this artist, and to see this powerful act live, but I think a review merely glazing the arena-level Tyler Childers experience would have little worth. The more interesting thing for me, in writing this review, is in exploring this unexpected feeling of hollowness after seeing one of my favourite contemporary artists.

As a disclaimer, I should say this is not a hit piece, and it’s certainly not political. Tyler Childers has come in for some criticism for political stances over the years, but I’m personally indifferent to it all. Long Violent History didn’t do anything for me, but it didn’t do anything against me either. I find his rationale on refusing to perform ‘Feathered Indians’ a bit silly, but nothing to get heated about, even if I would love to hear the song live. I didn’t like ‘In Your Love’, but that wasn’t because of any gay miner video, but because I find the song itself consciously safe and mainstream, a worrying sign of an authentic artist trending more hollow than holler. I’ve written my thoughts on artists getting political in numerous other reviews, seeing neither a need for fans to get angry about it nor a need for artists to burnish themselves with it. My thoughts on that are probably not worth the bytes they’re coded on, and besides, there’s nothing political about tonight.

Rather, I think what disconcerts me is the polish. This is very much a “show” tonight, and not exactly what you’d expect when a bunch of country boys show up with guitars and pedal steel. Everything is curated, everything is smooth and prepared. Large screen projects fantastic coloured videos tailored to each song; a visual feast, and something I’d seen done to great effect by Paul McCartney in Manchester last year. But Paul McCartney is the most famous musician in the world and has played his songs a million times over. You know you’re going to get ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Blackbird’, ‘Live and Let Die’. With Tyler Childers only 34 and – with respect – only one truly, truly great album in his catalogue (Purgatory), the tailored visuals betray the fact that there’ll be no spontaneity tonight. Everything is pre-planned and everyone is going to stick to the script; you know what you’re going to get. Tonight we’re watching an artist at their peak in terms of commercial success, an independent artist who has drawn a crowd of 20,000 to an arena in a foreign country. But we’re not watching an artist at their peak, creatively. A week earlier I saw the Red Clay Strays set the night on fire in Birmingham through sheer talent and upwards momentum. Tyler and his band should still be in that same thrilling moment. An artist of this level of talent should set the nearby Thames on fire. But theirs is a flame that is carefully stoked rather than set loose.

Perhaps this hollowness then is merely sadness on my part, or even ingratitude. The common objection I’ve seen to criticisms of Tyler Childers, particularly after his odd, dissonant Snipe Hunter album released earlier this year, is that an artist is free to go where they will, and “if you don’t like it, don’t listen to it”. Fair enough, and certainly I’m not one of those who crudely retort that “he was better when he was on the drugs”, even though at that time he seemed a force of chaotic genius, deeply soulful and firing off incredible songs in such number that, years later, there are still unreleased gems that fans are desperate to hear as proper studio recordings.

I live clean myself, and have never liked the ‘tortured artist’ trope. I remember the first time I really saw Van Gogh’s famous ‘Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear’ – I mean, really saw it and understood its power. A self-portrait is an artist sitting down and, stroke by stroke, analysing themselves. Van Gogh faced what he had done to himself in his self-mutilation and painted it and admitted it to himself. I realised then that Van Gogh wasn’t a great artist because he was crazy. He was a great artist in spite of being crazy. Who knows what greater wonders that poor man could have done without that horrible burden. And while of course Tyler Childers is not on that level of creative genius, the same logic applies. Everything that Tyler did “when he was on the drugs” was done in spite of them, not because of them, and getting sober is one of his most admirable achievements.

And yet, something has been lost. A spontaneity, an exuberance. The night’s far from joyless: there’s a great energy and quality of song, and Tyler himself beams with smiles and a verbose – though clearly rehearsed – humour when talking to the crowd. He sells it well, but I’m reluctant to lionise salesmen. The beard has been shaved, and the rough edges shaved off with it. The upstart Kentucky boy who wrote killer songs in his head while working odd jobs, producing more dynamite than you’d find in the local coal mines, is now actively angling for Grammys and mainstream acceptance. The breath of fresh air from the Appalachian hills has now been bottled for mass consumption. The thing that made us sit upright when we heard ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ or ‘Lady May’ or ‘Shake the Frost’ for the first time is now much harder to find. And the fans who became fans because of that special quality, well, they drift away – or, like me, arrive in the O2 in the hope of catching a remnant of it. But nothing halts that spit-in-your-eye alternative momentum than showing that you want to be accepted by the mainstream after all.

In attempting to find the right words for this peculiar feeling of unease, of disquiet, even when I have thoroughly enjoyed the night, I come across the German word schilderwald. Coined for the bewildering array of competing traffic signs and signals at busy intersections, it literally means “forest of signs”. I seize on it gratefully to explain my unknown feeling. In the O2 Arena tonight we’re in the Childerswald. There are many competing signs, many directions to go, and no one path is any clearer than another. As thousands of phones light up around the arena for people to record ‘In Your Love’ for their TikTok feeds, many raised high to show themselves singing along or crying performatively, I find myself thinking that many of these people wouldn’t be caught dead in places like The Slaughtered Lamb. Which isn’t to imply in any way that I’m a better fan; only that I’m one who has perhaps been left a few steps behind on the path Tyler has chosen to go down. These are Tyler’s people now. To use the corporate phrase his management team may well deploy as they chart his future course, they are his ‘target audience’.

For better or for worse, Tyler Childers has become an artist known as much for his left-turns and divided fanbase as for his undoubted quality as both a singer and a songwriter. This is evident in the live experience; the night at the O2 is opened by Omni of Halos, a Swedish alternative grunge-rock band whose sound is a heavy and distorted one. For people who like this kind of music, it’s the kind of music they’ll like. But even though the band have a pedal steel player, it’s an incongruous sound for a night of country music. The Swedes are followed by The Magic Numbers, a British indie rock band who are closer to the vibe we’re looking for with their melodic ‘Love’s a Game’ and the slight dissonance on ‘Sweet Divide’. They get deservedly warm applause from the crowd, but fans are still having to work to forge a path through the Childerswald to get back from where Tyler, in his latest left-turn, has sent us.

But it’s in the main set that the bewildering array of signs and lights competing in this forest become more evident tonight, even if the power of Tyler and his band do much to bring us through. Tonight is part of a tour to promote Snipe Hunter, Tyler’s latest album, which has drawn mixed reactions from his fanbase. I place myself firmly and unapologetically in the ranks of those whose reaction was ‘mixed’. I expected more from the production (particularly as the producer once made one of my favourite albums, Tom Petty’s Wildflowers). It was needlessly sloppy and dissonant, with naïve experimentation that criminally distorted the vocals of one of modern music’s most characterful singers. Even more disquieting was that half the songs on the album were instantly forgettable, which is quite alarming for such a talented songwriter. Recognise that Snipe was the latest addition to an album release run that comprises 2023’s lightweight Rustin’ in the Rain, 2022’s bloated, indulgent Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? and 2020’s irrelevant fiddle instrumental Long Violent History, and it becomes easier to understand the frustration of long-time fans.

These concerns – or admissions of disappointment – can be scoffed at by the vigilant stans who man the keyboards in Tyler’s defence, or drowned out by the off-key singing of the TikTok day-trippers and drunken cosplay cowboys who now flock to his shows, but their validity is proven somewhat by the fact that when the Snipe Hunter songs are played tonight, they’re actually pretty good.

‘Nose on the Grindstone’ is of course a fan favourite that was unsullied long before it was attached to the album, and it gets a fine reception tonight in the middle of Tyler’s mini acoustic set. Rather, it’s other songs which blossom when freed from the consequences of Snipe Hunter‘s bad decisions; the throwaway ‘Down Under’ becomes a bit more agreeable, and ‘Watch Out’ proves itself to be a good song underneath – not a beloved ‘Purgatory’ or ‘Country Squire’-level song, but maybe a ‘Creeker’.

Without the distortion of the album cut, which makes it pretty much unlistenable, the titular ‘Snipe Hunt’ emerges as a rather pleasant rocker when played straight by Tyler and his band. The opening one-two punch of ‘Eatin’ Big Time’ and ‘Dirty Ought Trill’ are good enough on the record but really show their worth live, setting us up for a rewarding night. But even so, that note of disquiet and hollowness which I keep returning to is there from this very first song. The artist who once wrote and sang compassionately – and does so again tonight – of the grandmother sitting in the corner in ‘Follow You to Virgie’ now sings of “blowing a thousand fucking dollars” on a Weiss wristwatch he’s now “flexing”.

But the hollowness I refer to is not solely attributable to Snipe Hunter. After all, ‘Bitin’ List’, another new song from the album, is already a crowd favourite and gets a roar of recognition from the London crowd as Tyler introduces it. He clearly loves it too, barking manically during the coda. If ‘Bitin’ List’ does seem a bit of a novelty song, there’s no harm at all in revelling in it while it still remains, for the moment, fresh and fun.

Instead, the hollowness resounds at some surprising moments. An early rendition of ‘I Swear (to God)’ is slightly pedestrian, a far cry from the energy with which I heard it live in London a few years ago, where it was one of the best songs on the night. ‘Jersey Giant’, which has become something of a country standard despite Tyler having not recorded a studio version of it, is capably done and yet rather bloodless, lacking the magic of his old lo-fi version that circulates among more devoted fans. Once Tyler’s found the right way he wants to do the song, I’ve no doubt he can revive its understated, wistful charm. But charming understatement is not the tone Tyler and his Weiss watch have been looking to strike in recent years; it’s not the path he’s chosen through the Childerswald. Tonight ‘Jersey Giant’ feels routine and out of place, as though Tyler feels obligated to sing it and reclaim it following its success with other artists.

The swarm of brightly-lit phones raised high to greet ‘In Your Love’, played just before ‘Jersey Giant’, are more accurate signage on this forest path. Aside from one good line (“some men search for ages…”), I’ve never been able to really like ‘In Your Love’, and Lord knows I’ve tried. It feels written to order, a sanitised ‘Feathered Indians’ replacement targeted to pull in casual, mainstream listeners with its generic lyrics and clichéd sentiment. What’s more, two of the more recent releases from Tyler are sweeping, romantic songs that hit all the marks that ‘In Your Love’ cloyingly smothers. Neither get an airing tonight: ‘Oneida’ remains on Snipe Hunter, a tidy number among a collection of red-headed stepchildren, while ‘A Song While You’re Away’ – a real gem, and proof that Tyler can still be produced well – languishes in, of all places, last year’s Twisters soundtrack.

Happily, however, the good thing about the Childerswald is that even if one route predominates and defines this current moment of Tyler’s career, there is still an array of glittering signs to transfix those of us who are disenchanted, and who would want those paths to be taken instead.

One such path is Tyler’s acoustic set in the middle – both literally and figuratively. After ‘Watch Out’ in the middle of tonight’s set, Tyler leaves the band on the stage and hustles along a pre-planned route through the crowd, towards a smaller lighted stage in the middle of the pit. Here, he straps on an acoustic guitar and sings, solo, the fan favourite ‘Lady May’. His bandmates C.J. Cain and Jesse Wells then join him, on guitar and fiddle respectively, for the afore-mentioned ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ and ‘Follow You to Virgie’.

This is the authentic, earthy Tyler we thirst for. During ‘Lady May’, which was the first song of Tyler’s I ever heard, I pull my attention away from the red-headed figure beneath the lights and back towards the main stage, now dark. The large screens remain on, projecting the image from the camera that zooms in on Tyler. He looks young, innocent and vulnerable; his eyes impossibly bright. For all the artistic left-turns he’s taken through the Childerswald, I am at least glad that the path he’s taken has been one of sobriety. By the time of the third and final song of this mini set, ‘Follow You to Virgie’, I find myself thinking that I could happily listen to a full acoustic set from Tyler, without the bells and whistles of the newly corporatised, mainstream Tyler, without the bloat and circus of a large touring band (Tyler’s added a second keys player since I last saw them live). Here, in ‘Virgie’, I can see him through the pines. Perhaps the hollowness I identify later is not from anything negative, any smoothed-over, sanitised experience or Snipe Hunter hangover, but from this pristine moment, from knowing with sadness that, at his best, Tyler Childers can be this good.

The magic remains in Tyler Childers elsewhere in the set, back on the main stage with his band around him. Early on, an energetic ‘Rustin’ in the Rain’ is described as “not a love song, but a rut song”,and its chaser, the classic ‘All Your’n’, is delivered with a beaming smile from its creator, relaxed and gesturing from the stage with a jar of water in his hand.

Later on, ‘Whitehouse Road’ proves a hit with the crowd; its return to Tyler’s setlists in recent years encouraging. The crowd had roared in vain for the song the first time I saw Tyler live in London in 2023, drawing only a curt “nope” from the man on stage, but tonight’s now the second time I’ve heard it live. It shows Tyler’s not averse to rehabilitating songs he’s previously exiled, and as he evolves he is making peace with the older, more jagged parts of himself. It doesn’t mean we’ll hear ‘Feathered Indians’, an even more beloved song, any time soon, and certainly not by the time he returns to England in just a few months. But it does suggest that those left-turns aren’t necessarily done by an artist looking to alienate his fans, even if some of them have that effect. They are turns from an artist still learning how to navigate his way through the bewildering forest of lights and signs.

As we reach the end of the night, Tyler and his band have kindled a significant flame in the crowd, with ‘Honky Tonk Flame’ and a funky ‘Way of the Triune God’ setting us up well for a big finish. ‘Universal Sound’ is not only one of Tyler’s best songs but also one of the best songs of the night. The vast colourful screens have been something of an ill-fitting distraction for what is still, at its best, country music, but they now prove their worth, projecting animated images of the cosmos to complement Tyler’s metaphysical lyrics. A glitter ball gently scatters shards of warm light across the rest of the darkened arena like stars across the void. The big arena screens then catch light for ‘House Fire’, turning the room an intense red and orange for tonight’s final number. It’s a crowd-pleasing foot-stomper that sugars the pill of knowing there will be no encore.

Encores are a strange thing; at their best, they are spontaneous eruptions of joy from a crowd wanting to show an artist how much they are loved by demanding more. But many artists clearly plan for an encore and see it as part of a normal set, with everyone buying in to the odd pantomime of an artist leaving stage and then coming back again. Some, I’ve noticed, even leave for the encore hit songs that it would have been inconceivable for them not to play.

Encores, then, are far from spontaneous, though we never mind the pantomime of this. In contrast, when Tyler notified us earlier in the night that they will not be doing an encore, and sticks to this at the end of the night, it does show the lack of spontaneity more starkly than any pre-planned encore. The night will never be allowed to become special enough to make an encore a necessity. I realise afterwards that Tyler’s never done an encore when I’ve seen him live, although I admit that is a small sample size.

The Tyler Childers show, then, is tightly defined, smoothed-down; a night of a well-drilled band following their drill, the animated videos on the screens reflecting the songs at every step. It’s large, it’s colourful, it’s a damn fine show; but I do find myself thirsting more for a band and an artist who rock up with momentum, and plug into their amps looking to generate a natural wave among the crowd rather than bringing a fully pre-configured wave machine. It’s such things that make a night visceral, and the moments that I remember most fondly from the live gigs I’ve attended over the years, the ones that I wish I could bottle up and experience the sensation of once again, have always been the ones that just happened, the ones on the edge, the ones that felt like they happened only on that night and never would again and you really did just have to be there.

Tonight, in contrast, has been more on the rails; a rollercoaster, to be sure, but a rollercoaster is something with manufactured thrills, and people remember their best nights of live music far longer than they do their ride on a rollercoaster. We are fans and the Childerswald is an exhilarating place to roam, but the course has been carefully plotted, those flashing lights not competing now but pre-determined signals on an optimised route.

The following morning my experience remains on the rails, with the delayed train wending me home. Better on the rails than completely off the rails, I find myself thinking, looking back on the night. Tyler is sober and clean and making music, and I am perhaps too harsh in choosing to be fascinated by that small kernel of hollowness rather than by all the good Tyler and his band have given London. His left-turns can be odd, showing that drugs are not the only way an ex-junkie can self-harm. His live experience is now just a tad too slick, but there are yet heights he is capable of scaling. He is the conductor of his train; he can guide it where he wants, and perhaps if it had gone differently for him and badly he wouldn’t even be here anymore to do any of it. If this odd, slightly indulged iteration is the only Tyler Childers we get, then I remain thankful to have it. The better parts of what he’s done in the past remain salvageable, and they are at hand to pick up again and bring along if Tyler wishes it.

The train passes Jodrell Bank; an exit sign from the colour and lights of the Childerswald. I will soon arrive at the comforts of home, where I will be restored and no doubt find myself willing to return to this forest again.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Snipe Hunter and written by Tyler Childers, unless noted)

  1. Eatin’ Big Time
  2. Dirty Ought Trill
  3. I Swear (to God) (from Purgatory)
  4. Trudy (Charlie Daniels) (unreleased)
  5. Rustin’ in the Rain (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  6. All Your’n (from Country Squire)
  7. In Your Love (Childers/Geno Seale) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  8. Jersey Giant (unreleased)
  9. Bitin’ List
  10. Watch Out
  11. Lady May (from Purgatory)
  12. Nose on the Grindstone
  13. Follow You to Virgie (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  14. Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  15. Whitehouse Road (from Purgatory)
  16. Down Under
  17. Honky Tonk Flame (from Purgatory)
  18. Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  19. Snipe Hunt
  20. Universal Sound (from Purgatory)
  21. House Fire (from Country Squire)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Our Cup Runneth Over: The Red Clay Strays Live in Birmingham

November 12, 2025 /

Thursday 6th November 2025

O2 Academy, Birmingham, England

If rock and roll is anything, it’s in evidence tonight. The Red Clay Strays take to the stage and tear straight into ‘Ramblin”, clearly determined to give the three thousand fans who have sold out the O2 Academy in Birmingham their money’s worth. It’s the start of what proves to be an impeccably delivered set on a truly special night for everyone who’s lucky enough to be here.

It’s a special night for Robbie Prevete, the band’s bespectacled, curly-haired guitar tech who joins the Strays on stage for three songs of their encore. Frontman Brandon Coleman, an amused smile on his lips, is at pains to point out that “there’s nothing wrong with Robbie. He’s a completely normal person.” His presence on the stage, strumming Brandon’s guitar, is not part of any “Make-a-Wish” pledge, but because “he’s actually the most talented guitarist standing on stage right now.” Drew Nix and Zach Rishel, who have both played incredibly tonight, do not object. Goodwill flows from this band like a cup runneth over.

It’s a special night for the Strays’ fellow Alabaman Early James, who opens with a set that would be worth the entry fee alone – and perhaps even worth the two-and-a-half-hour journey I have made down from Manchester tonight, and will make back again in the early hours. Slapping his guitar like an old bluesman and singing with an enthralling Tom Waits-esque rasp, he provides a darkly glittering litany of songs including ‘Tumbleweed’, ‘Taste of Sin’, ‘Mama Can Be My Valentine’ and ‘I Could Just Die Right Now’. The song which put him on my radar – the ‘Real Low Down Lonesome’ duet with Sierra Ferrell – isn’t present in his setlist tonight, but he does invite his girlfriend Cammie Windley on stage to sing, June Carter-esque, on the John Prine duet ‘In Spite of Ourselves’. He even gets the Strays’ drummer John Hall to come out early to provide a beat for the best damn twisted cover of Hank Williams’ ‘Hey Good Lookin” I’ve ever heard.

It’s a special night for the Strays themselves, playing for the first time in Birmingham, England and a long way from their days as a bar band in Mobile, Alabama. At that time – remarkably, just a few years ago – even the state’s city of Birmingham (“we pronounce it Birming-HAM”, Early James says) must have seemed a distant goal, let alone playing Birmingham (pronounced Birmin-GUM) as part of a sellout tour on the other side of the Atlantic, with a rowdy English crowd signing your own songs back to you.

But most of all, it’s a special night for 24-year-old Ellen Ratcliffe. Two-thirds of the way through their set, the Red Clay Strays begin playing those distinctive chords of ‘Wondering Why’ and Brandon Coleman sings the viral opening lyrics. Thousands of phones light up as hands train them on the stage, but one man has other plans. Amongst the throng of the crowd, he gets down on one knee and asks Ellen to marry him.

The man has timing that John Hall would be proud of. Brandon smiles and points towards them. “Looks like she said yes,” he announces mid-verse, with genuine warmth in his voice. The crowd erupt into cheers that rival any tonight. After the song ends he passes his congratulations to the newly-engaged couple, along with some advice. “I tell ya, don’t listen to anybody that says ‘Do not get married’. Because getting married and being married is one of the coolest things ever. I heard somebody say one time: ‘I’ve never seen two selfless people get a divorce.’ So as long as you’re watching out for each other, put one another above yourselves, you’ll be together forever.”

This is the power of the Red Clay Strays. For a band that are heirs-apparent to the Rolling Stones, they are unashamedly Christian, moral and straightlaced. They are wise beyond their years and, as both their song lyrics and Brandon’s mike will show tonight, are willing to tackle subjects such as depression and mental health without ever once appearing insincere, cloying or virtue-signalling. They can do all this and yet remain effortlessly cool, whether that is the lean, suited retro Fifties look Brandon cultivates or the more laid-back raglan shirt and cowboy hat look of guitarist Drew Nix.

And, beneath it all, there is of course the music. This is not “Christian rock”, but pure, fresh-cut rock and roll that just happens to be made by a group of young Christians not abashed to express their moral beliefs in a culture that has long since commodified rebellion, degeneracy and apathy and called it ‘cool’. Theirs is a generation that drinks less, indulges less; exercises more, talks more. Rock and roll wasn’t dead, but it had been hollowed out by excess and insincerity. The Red Clay Strays have seized the mantle of becoming this generation’s great rock and roll hope and given it new life and purpose, while still remaining plugged directly into the raw and raucous power that the music pulsed with in its prime.

Nowhere is that more apparent than with the song that immediately follows ‘Wondering Why’ and the proposal in the crowd. Brandon introduces it as an old song from when the band “first started leaving home and being on the road”. ‘Till Things Get Right’ remains unreleased, but it’s a truly fantastic song. No wonder this current tour is named the ‘Get Right’ tour, for the song takes pride of place. It would be the sweetest release of music even without the marriage proposal we’ve just witnessed, but hearing it tonight, knowing something so wonderful and memorable has just happened to two people in the crowd and feeling genuinely happy for them, makes the song’s message even more true, as though the lyrics have been laced with gold.

We only have to hang in till things get right, as they surely will, as they have for two young people tonight. The song starts with a simple, timeless riff, before Brandon’s soulful singing begins and the crowd sings along at the perfect moment (“and money’s always tight – tight-tight-tight-tight!”). It’s everything that rock and roll should be: a sense of hope, of boundless freedom, of recognising that good things can happen and the world is better for rock and roll being played. You don’t have to believe in divine righteousness to believe in righteousness, and wherever you stand in life this song just hits right. For all but two of us in the room it’s merely a blissful moment of pure rock and roll straight out of a Seventies road trip, but for the newly-engaged couple it’s the perfect song to begin their new journey on.

If ‘Wondering Why’ and ‘Till Things Get Right’ soundtrack the finest moment of the night, they are not alone in thrilling the crowd. The whole night has been finely sculpted by the band, a night of moments that together become a powerful, exhilarating experience of the sort that only a generational rock and roll band can provide. The Red Clay Strays might have caught a break when the Western AF version of ‘Wondering Why’ went viral, but behind that viral punch there was a great weight of follow-through.

This is proven as early as the band’s second song tonight. ‘Moment of Truth’ isn’t one of the Strays’ best-known songs, but it’s an early introduction to their on-stage force. “Why do I do all these things that I do?” Brandon sings, teasing out every iamb and stressing it with soul. It’s one of those songs that’s slept on, but you can easily see it becoming a deep-cut that people rediscover in years to come.

The band follow it with ‘Stone’s Throw’, another from that fateful Western AF session that draws an early frisson of recognition among the crowd as Andrew Bishop’s bass guitar begins the song’s riff. The bassist is clearly having fun; during the following number, ‘Disaster’, he takes a swig from Drew Nix’s drink after the guitarist stalks across the stage to trade licks with Zach Rishel. He grins impishly as the returning Nix gives him a playful kick.

The band then show their range with the mature, intelligent ‘Forgive’ and the chunky blues-rocker ‘Good Godly Woman’ on either side of the catchy, soulful ‘Do Me Wrong’, which garners a swaying singalong from the Birmingham crowd. The Strays follow with ‘People Hatin”, their recent message song about “calling out hatred, no matter what side you’re on”. I confess I struggled to like this song on first listen, considering it a bit too on-the-nose and disliking message songs in general, but ‘People Hatin” is delivered well tonight – a song I suspect will always find an extra dimension when played live.

From here, our cup truly does runneth over, as a band that have been impeccable so far tonight begin to show us just how good they can be. They are soulful and thoughtful in the timeless ‘Moments’, raw and cathartic on ‘Drowning’. ‘Devil in My Ear’ sounds dark and foreboding, ‘Ghosts’ funky and danceable. In between, Brandon takes a seat at the keys next to Sevans Henderson and sings the uplifting ‘Sunshine’, a “song about being hopeless but trusting in Jesus anyway”. No sunrise ever sounded so hard-won.

It’s after ‘Ghosts’ that Brandon returns to guitar and we’re treated to that special experience of ‘Wondering Why’ and ‘Till Things Get Right’. If that wasn’t enough, they chase it with ‘I’m Still Fine’, one of their most exquisite, world-weary slices of Southern soul, and end the set with the wild church-fire of ‘On My Knees’, Brandon dancing frantically in place to bring the crowd to fever pitch.

“We’re fully aware that not everybody believes in God,” Brandon says after ‘I’m Still Fine’, “and everyone has their own opinions on God. That doesn’t matter to us: if you like our music, we’re happy to have ya. We’re not trying to be anybody’s preachers or shove it down anybody’s throat or be anybody’s spiritual leaders. We are not perfect people, I promise you.”

He looks to John Hall. “John, he drinks a lot of beer,” Brandon says with mock sincerity, drawing laughs. The drummer had been central to my last review of the Red Clay Strays live, when they came to Manchester a year ago. Tonight he’s been largely obscured from my view, though he’s certainly made himself heard.

“None of us have any business being behind a pulpit. We just make music about our life and God’s a big part of our life, so He’s in our music. It’s as simple as that.

“And we make music that we’re proud of, something we’ll be proud to be behind when we’re gone. Because music is medicine and helps people. And I think one thing I’d want somebody to take away from us is: Have some hope. It’s not over. You’re still alive and you’re still breathing and it’s gonna be OK. Just have some hope.”

These are men who were drowning, who were going nowhere, who now stand on a stage together in front of a cheering crowd as the next great rock and roll band. And they did it by staying true to themselves and their convictions.

“All you have to do is persevere, and then one day you’ll be looking back on whatever it is you thought was going to kill you and take you out. You’ll be that much stronger of a person and your faith will be that much stronger. And you’ll be rejoicing and be thankful.”

Regardless of where you stand on the particulars of the Christian faith, it’s hard not to rejoice tonight. To see people doing the right thing in the right way, sticking to their creed while still pushing themselves out into new terrain, is a wonderful thing to witness. It’s not only that the Red Clay Strays play fantastic rock and roll, and have seized this opportunity to bring their art into the world. It’s that alongside art, we sometimes sense that there is also an art to life; a way of living that is the best way of treating others, of experiencing moments, and of making this vale of tears our home.

The Strays would no doubt call this living right under God, but it doesn’t have to be seen that way if that’s too unpalatable for some. The Strays might not be anybody’s preacher, but a good night of music is anybody’s preacher; it is powerful, communal and deeper than rationality or sense. There is an art to life and not only the Strays but anyone who goes out to experience nights like this is practicing it. We’re all made by these moments.

And that art of living can only be practiced with appropriate care when we realise that it’s finite. In its most serious terms, it’s finite in that the people hatin’ the Strays have spoken against leads to death and violence, as it did with the Charlie Kirk assassination which prompted the song’s premature release (I wrote more about Kirk here.)

But in happier terms, it’s finite in the sense that you never know again when you’ll experience such a moment as the one you’re in right now. The Red Clay Strays are destined for larger stages – indeed, the day after this Birmingham gig they announce they’ll be headlining Madison Square Garden next year. And who knows when they’ll return to the UK, and when they do, if I’ll be able to stand as close to the stage as I do tonight at the O2 Academy. Maybe one day the grown-up children of Ellen Ratcliffe and her fiancé will groan at the competition for tickets at a Red Clay Strays stadium concert the same way we baulk at those of the Rolling Stones. But because their parents had been practicing the art of life they will be able to smile and say that they saw the band when they were on the way up, in front of just a few thousand people.

But even though we realise it’s all finite, that doesn’t mean it has to end just yet. After long shouts for an encore – long enough, in fact, that I almost begin to doubt the band are coming back out – the Strays return to the stage. With Robbie Prevete playing his guitar, Brandon delivers a powerful, devotional rendition of ‘Will the Lord Remember Me?’, before taking his acoustic guitar for the restful ‘God Does’.

Zach Rishel bends the notes that introduce ‘Wanna Be Loved’, prompting cheers of recognition from the crowd. The band are having fun, Brandon walking to the lip of the stage as Robbie plays his guitar. He then rushes towards Andrew Bishop to chase him away from his spot, the bassist grinning boyishly. Brandon then sits on the edge of the stage, singing to the crowd. The band are in their element, riding a wave of their own creation.

The ease in which they ride this wave, a wave of genuine power, is evident in the final song of the encore, the glorious, triumphant rocker ‘No One Else Like Me’. For all that you can draw analogues for the band – their sound pulls the best from Sixties and Seventies rock, along with classic soul and country – the Strays are their own force, heirs to the throne rather than retro pretenders. Brandon says he wrote the song as a “funny little response to everybody that likes to compare me to Elvis. And Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and anybody else like that” and while you can draw such comparisons from both his look and his sound tonight – that soulful voice as true a successor to Ray Charles and Otis Redding as you could wish – he is very much his own man as he takes a bow and leaves the stage.

The band continue to play, bringing ‘No One Else Like Me’ to its frenetic conclusion. Robbie and Zach play together. Drew walks to the lip of the stage, his eyes focused on his frets. Behind him, Andrew jumps off the stage and walks along the front row, still playing. He stands up on the rail in front of me before jumping back up on stage and heading to John’s thrashing drums. As the song ends, John throws his sticks up into the air. Zach throws his pick into the crowd.

The Red Clay Strays may be fired by a holier Spirit, but there’s no doubting what has made the night so special for the few thousand in the Academy hall in Birmingham tonight. This is the spirit of rock and roll brought to full flame.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Made By These Moments, unless noted)

  1. Ramblin’ (The Red Clay Strays/Dave Cobb)
  2. Moment of Truth (Matthew Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  3. Stone’s Throw (Drew Nix/Eric Erdman) (from Moment of Truth)
  4. Disaster (M. Coleman)
  5. Forgive (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  6. Do Me Wrong (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  7. Good Godly Woman (Brandon Coleman/Nix/Brandon Rickman) (single)
  8. People Hatin’ (B. Coleman/M. Coleman/Cobb/Andrew Bishop/Zach Rishel/John Hall) (single)
  9. Moments (B. Coleman/M. Coleman/Nix/Anderson East)
  10. Drowning (Nix)
  11. Devil in My Ear (Nix)
  12. Sunshine (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  13. Ghosts (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  14. Wondering Why (B. Coleman/Nix/Dan Couch) (from Moment of Truth)
  15. Till Things Get Right (M. Coleman) (unreleased)
  16. I’m Still Fine (M. Coleman)
  17. On My Knees (The Red Clay Strays/Cobb)
  18. Encore: Will the Lord Remember Me? (E. M. Bartlett) (single)
  19. Encore: God Does (Nix)
  20. Encore: Wanna Be Loved (M. Coleman/Dakota Coleman)
  21. Encore: No One Else Like Me (B. Coleman/M. Coleman)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

In the Court of the King of Instruments: Roger Sayer Performs Interstellar Live at Blackburn Cathedral

November 2, 2025 /

Friday 24th October 2025

Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn, England

Déjà vu is usually a feeling that strikes you unawares, and often in inexplicable moments. The uncanny sense that you’ve been here before, that your brain has just delivered to you vividly but without the corresponding file pulled from the vaults of memory to provide context. Sometimes it can be unsettling; other times it can be comforting. It is not known for sure why it happens, but we consider it a harmless glitch or misfire in the brain as it goes about its many plastic tasks.

As I park my car and walk towards Blackburn Cathedral in the dark, the trees along the path not yet shed for the autumn, I don’t know if there is a supplementary word to attach to déjà vu to describe what I feel now. Perhaps this feeling is what the brain is reaching for when it misfires for that uncanny sensation: a legitimate recognition, a knowingness, a familiarity as I enter and scan my ticket and a graceful usher guides me to my seat.

There is no need to do so. I know the way, though I do not tell her this. Because this is the very same concert I attended almost exactly a year ago, with an identically serene night-lit approach to the very same welcoming church, and the same almost imperceptible drizzling of rain pattering against the Anglican stone. As the usher smiles pleasantly and takes her leave, I imagine I could almost be a ghost or a mind caught within a dream, performing a perpetually renewed cycle and welcomed now back to the fold.

It is as though the never-ending note that Roger Sayer referred to when I saw him perform here last year has indeed continued to play, carrying on into an annual return. The Q&A session which marks the halfway point of tonight’s concert is shorter and less in-depth than it was for the 10th anniversary of Interstellar last year, but Roger, the organist who played on Hans Zimmer’s original score, still communicates to the crowd some of the interesting features of that music. Not least that it begins and ends on that same, never-ending note – a mark of travelling and space-faring, of thematic harmony, of eternity in an empty space.

It is this remarkable depth to the music of Interstellar which ensures its continued popularity, beyond the exquisite ingenuity of its motifs. As thrilling as it is to hear some of those well-known themes from the film from the pipes of the cathedral’s organ tonight, it is not solely for this reason that Blackburn Cathedral drew a sell-out crowd tonight. We are drawn here because, like that mysterious feeling of déjà vu, the unknowable plasticity of our brain recognises something in the music to be heard tonight. While on a conscious level we can appreciate the majesty, the harmony and the epic quality of this grand music, our subconscious brain pulls towards some deeper correlation. This recognition manifests itself as reverence, the harmony between the unknown that Christianity seeks to explain and the awesome unknown of space into which Interstellar quested. It just seems right that if you hear this music you hear it from the organ of an impressive stone church, a metallic crown of thorns hanging above the altar.

It must be this deep, almost metaphysical reverence which drew me here again tonight, because I knew in advance it would be the same music I heard last year. Indeed, my review here could do no better than repeat last year’s narration of the experience of the music (for brevity’s sake, I’ll suffice with a link instead); a repeat performance of Roger Sayer’s carefully curated suite of Interstellar music, which condenses the expansive, three-hour Hans Zimmer score down to forty minutes while still hitting all the major themes.

There are some differences between the two nights I have heard this live from Blackburn Cathedral. Some are small: the seat the usher leads me to is a premium seat near the front – I learned my lesson and booked early this time. From this vantage point the music proves more resounding, the Q&A responses clearer. Another change is that this iteration of the music of Interstellar is “under Gaia”; a vast model of the Earth hangs in the nave, replacing last year’s installation of the Moon. (During the Q&A, someone asks Roger which he prefers, and he diplomatically chooses the current installation. I preferred the Moon.)

Other changes from last year are more notable. Last year the suite of music prior to Interstellar comprised of the Strauss music best known for its use in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’, which contains motifs that later inspired John Williams for Star Wars. This time round, Roger Sayer calls a spade a spade and plays the music from science-fiction films directly. John Williams’ various Star Wars themes are prominent, and are joined by the uplifting childlike wonder of his ‘Flying Theme’ from E.T., while the night begins with the Thunderbirds theme by Barry Gray, who was born here in Blackburn and once studied at this cathedral.

The most notable piece in this opening suite is a theme composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, used centuries later as the soundtrack for the science-fiction film Solaris. This is the only piece in the opening suite which was written specifically for the organ. The rest, Roger tells us, are transcriptions; the figuration usually done by violins and now moved by him onto the various stops and keys of the organ. The difference is marked; while all the themes are performed well, the Solaris theme is a clear standout. Like Interstellar later in the night – also composed specifically for the organ – it is quite at home.

Of the music of Interstellar as it is performed tonight, I actually have little to say. Even if I hadn’t already contributed some remarks on the music in my review last year, it would be hard for me to write any further this time. One of the main reasons I write reviews of the concerts I attend is to remember the blow-by-blow of the night: how close the room felt, which songs garnered the loudest cheer, whether it rained outside. But a blow-by-blow account is impossible when the main piece is a single forty-minute movement – Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar. A return visit, one year after the first, is therefore an unprecedented opportunity for my brain to sink the groove of memory it founded last year a little deeper. And this is not a wasted event: who wouldn’t want to relive some of the best concert experiences they have had?

When we recall special days we find our brains have filed them away mostly in moments and feelings rather than in their entirety. When I think back to the astonishing Nick Cave gig I attended last year, for example, it’s not the whole night which comes to mind, nor any one particular song, but the broad swell of raw, unadulterated bliss that he and the Bad Seeds evoked. Memories of other nights are anchored in certain moments: Kassi Valazza picking the guitar notes of ‘From Newman Street’ as the bells of the Old Church at St. Pancras gently tolled outside, or 40,000 hands waving from side to side as Bruce Springsteen sang ‘Bobby Jean’ in Manchester.

My memory of the music of Interstellar at Blackburn Cathedral this time round is cemented by meeting Roger Sayer after the concert; shaking his hand, buying a copy of his music. I spoke to him briefly of my recent visit to Temple Church, where he is based. On a business trip to London, I had been able to duck out of my office on my lunch break and walk a short distance into the calm and gentle temple courtyard. Considering it’s only a stone’s throw away from the hustle and bustle of Fleet Street, the church built by the Knights Templar is remarkably silent and serene.

Another recent memory, still vivid in its every blow, is of hearing Billy Strings at the Royal Albert Hall in London just a couple of weeks ago, a place where Roger Sayer has also performed the music he plays tonight. When I was there, I had looked around at the vast dome and recalled the famous Beatles lyric about “Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire… Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.” In rather cosmic symmetry, I now find myself two weeks later in Blackburn, Lancashire, listening to the sound of Interstellar erupt from four thousand holes atop the four thousand pipes of the cathedral’s Walker organ.

It is a magnificent sound, and a humbling one. The pipes are threaded into the walls, the church itself the instrument’s resonance chamber; tonight is the awesome noise of a building itself being played. Not for nothing does Roger relate during the Q&A that the organ is considered the “king of instruments”, a phrase often attributed to Mozart (who knew a thing or two about good music). While Roger deservedly takes the applause after each movement of music and greets members of the audience afterwards, he is aware that he’s not the star of the show. The vast organ itself is the star, as it rises in sound and mass and bursts with aural supernova, delivering the tailor-made music that we’ve gathered in reverence to hear.

And it’s with striking humility that Roger Sayer answers a question during tonight’s Q&A – an answer worthy of recording for posterity and therefore validating my attempt at a review. Having just performed the suite of music including Star Wars, E.T. and Solaris, Roger is asked by a member of the audience whether he does “not get sick of film music?”

The question is asked politely and honestly; Roger’s response is measured, emphasising his love for movie soundtracks, not just Interstellar. He mentions how the film received some criticism for how the music would sometimes overpower the dialogue, and reveals that this was a deliberate artistic decision on the part of Zimmer and Christopher Nolan, the film’s director. The music is there to help tell the story just as much as the dialogue is, he says, and in certain moments “music carries on when the words fail,” the swell of organ music telling the story better than any incidental line filling a gap in the screenplay ever could. Roger concludes by rhapsodising the “wonderful synergy” between music and film epitomised by the triumph of Interstellar. “Together,” he says, “they’re the most powerful thing we’ve got.”

In the cold light of day, we can still recognise the truth of that response. Think of a film without its music and you think of a bird without its wings. But in the court of the king of instruments, on the interregnum between the music, the great organ rests silently as it is said. Its own answer will come in the second set, as Roger takes his seat at the keys with his back to the audience and the king fills its vast lungs with an intake of breath and begins its reign anew.

Setlist:

  1. The Thunderbirds March (from Thunderbirds) (Barry Gray)
  2. Flying Theme (from E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial) (John Williams)
  3. The Imperial March (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  4. Princess Leia’s Theme (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  5. March from Things to Come (from Things to Come) (Arthur Bliss)
  6. Choral Prelude (from Solaris) (Johann Sebastian Bach)
  7. The Throne Room and End Titles (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  8. Q&A and Intermission
  9. Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My science-fiction writing can be found here.

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