Tommy Emmanuel and Molly Tuttle - 11 January 2024

This was the third time seeing Tommy Emmanuel but on each occasion he was not the reason for going! This time it was the wish to see the support act, Molly Tuttle. She came on with just her acoustic guitar and played a set that was difficult to categorise but easy to enjoy immensely. She hit a purple patch with 'More Like a River' followed by 'Old Dooley's Farm' the first a love song the second a country song about growing illegal plants. She also did a Stones cover 'She's a Rainbow' a jaunty song called 'Side Saddle' and finished with 'Take the Journey'. Her guitar playing throughout was mesmeric, her fingers are seriously quick and she sang up a storm. Tommy Emmanuel is astonishing in terms of hwat he can do with a guitar although I am not always sold on his jocular on-stage personality or his choice of material. Still a very enjoyable set as he rattled through some fast picking stuff and then brought on a guitar player called Mike Dawes who turned out to be very good and the two of them played a couple of songs the second of which was 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - a brilliant instrumental version. About four minutes in Tommy's guitar went silent and there was a few minutes of technical investigation before he got going again and pleasingly they started the song again. Good stuff. Tommy did a beautiful version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and soon after did his Beatles medley (meh) then straight into Classical Gas (better). However the best part of his show then happened when he brought back Molly Tuttle and they did three superb songs together, 'White Freightliner Blues' (a Townes Van Zandt cover), 'Deep River Blues' (a Doc Watson cover) and 'Crooked Tree' (a Molly Tuttle song). I will say this for Tommy he plays with great guitarists and he gives them space and equal presence as he did last time with Jerry Douglas. Both played brilliantly in this part of the set. There was one more tune from Tommy on his own and that really took me by surprise. It was 'Waltzing Matilda' and it put that song in a whole new light for me. No longer a jolly up tempo sing-a-long but a moving poignant folk tune. Some finish.