Show of Hands

This week has been memorable in several different ways for me, but I will concentrate on a concert that I went to on Wednesday evening. An old friend of mine who is very knowledgeable about various kinds of music but particularly in folk music and musicians, had asked me months ago if I would like to join him to see Show of Hands at Bristol’s St Georges. I had no knowledge of Show of Hands, previously being only vaguely aware of the name. They are an internationally known group and my friend Godfrey had seen them on their previous year’s tour at the same venue. And so tickets were bought, and we joined the full and appreciative audience in the former church on Brandon Hill, which is well known not for its architecture but its acoustics. Show of Hands has recently published a new album Witness and the songs from that and from other albums familiar to many in the audience were performed with great gusto and to much applause. There was laughter too, as many of the songs have comic elements and local references. Show of Hands are very much local west country singers, hailing from East Devon but are now travelling all over the UK on their autumn tour. They perform at different venues five nights a week from October to the finish at Exeter in early December. Earlier this year they had a very succesful tour to Canada.
I would be hopeless at describing the band in detail and so will let them describe themselves in the e–link above and their Longdogs fan-site. All I will say is that I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and suggest you listen to a bit of their music which is available free on the website. I forgot to mention that Show of Hands had a guest artist with them on Wednesday - Michael Joseph who was also excellent and his act blended in well.