Mabon 5/5/2018

One of my favourite things is walking to a great gig in the village where you live. That was afforded to me last night as Mabon played our village hall. They have played together for almost 20 years so they are very tight and there is also a good line in banter throughout the show which shows they still get on after 20 years. The music was just up my street - celtic basically, with some jigs, plenty of reels, some airs, one Bretonny tune (Drum and Briezh)and so on. Oliver Wilson-Dickson on fiddle and Jaime Smith on accordion are the stars of the band but Matt Downer on bass, Iolo Whelan on drums and Paul Rogers on guitar all contribute to the brilliant overall sound. 'The Accordionist's Despair' was an opportunity for Jamie Smith to show off his dexterity at speed on the accordion but in general the standard of the songs was at a level from start to finish. The audience loved the show, the band clearly enjoyed it too and I got to walk home. Perfect.

Eric Bibb 4/5/2018

The support was a young exuberant singer/songwriter from Nottingham called Rob Green. He was an usual act with his own style of singing and a lot of chat and he wanted a lot of audience participation which he got. It's unusual for a half-hour support act to get a standing ovation but Rob got one. Eric Bibb came on with Michael J Browne who also played guitar (and mandolin on a few songs). Michael J Browne in fact took most of the lead guitar and he was good. He played slide sometimes and even channelled Robert Johnson a couple of times. The other two members of the band came on after a couple of songs. They were bassist xxxxx and the excellent drummer yyyyy who I noticed straight away as he did great percussion with just a couple of shakers. The things that struck me was how good a singer Eric Bibb is for his style of country blues. He is also an excellent guitarist although understated most of the time. Only near the end where he took some lead work were his skills on obvious show. He did some covers as well as his own stuff, particularly from his latest album 'Migration Blues'. 'Going Down the Road Feelin Bad' is of course a great tune and shortly after he played 'Needed Time' a great song and the gig seemed to lift a level. Right after that he did a song featuring 'going to the station' and then a Tampa Red song and it was all good stuff. Other songs were 'Panama Hat', 'Diegos Blues' and 'New World Coming Through'. Great entertainment delivered in an understated ambience (apart from Rob Green obvs).