Venue:
The Pound Arts Centre, Corsham, Wiltshire
Date: 01/11/2025
What a revelatory, serendipitous evening we had last night.
Following last month’s lovely Katie Spencer gig in Calstock, Cornwall, I spotted that she had a gig lined up that was a tad closer to Foxy Towers – only an easy 20 minutes away in Corsham. A look at the ticketing for the night in question revealed that the gig was headlined as a John Smith performance, one of only four on his current tour where he has teamed up with Katie. The inevitable effect of this pairing was that there were only a handful of seats left, two of which we promptly grabbed.
My companion at the Cornwall Katie gigs (we’ve seen her twice in God’s Own County) has been my younger brother, who is himself a lovely guitar player. His house is like a guitar shop; they line the walls. For him, the name John Smith invokes a low sigh as his head rolls backwards and his eyes shut in profound admiration. When I told him we’d got tickets for the two-hander, he immediately asked if a) there were any more left, and b) could he crash at the Towers that night? In the end he couldn’t make the trip up from Devon for that date, so Madame Vulpes and I made our way to the gig without him.
Little brother had waxed lyrical about John’s playing and singing, and the astonishing thing to me was that I don’t think I’d ever consciously heard anything by him at all. Bro’ sent me lots of links, YouTube videos and suchlike. I diligently avoided exploring any of them, and informed him that I wanted to be What’sApp’d no more of the things – I wanted to experience the full effect of the artist for the first time unencumbered with prior opinions – to see and hear his performance unsullied with expectation.
Katie’s support set was exactly what I had originally been seeking from the gig – a glorious repeat performance of some of the highlight songs we’d heard in the Cornish sets, perfectly delivered and sung, with her trademark precision and grace. I wanted my wife to hear her playing live, and she loved it. Fabulous. At that point I could, if circumstances had dictated it, have left for home and not thought the evening disappointing.
After a quick interval and a quick beer, we re-took our seats and Mr Smith took to the stage. My goodness, he’s as good as I’d been told. Warm baritone voice, fabulous playing and truly absorbing songs. We got pretty much all of his current album, laid out for us as “This is side1” then an interlude of two or three from earlier records (see comments for my fave of these), then “Here we are then, this is side 2”. He has a very impressive back catalogue – how had I not known? – and I feel privileged to have ‘discovered’ him at this point in his career. As he put it, this was a Greatest Hits selection. If any of them had been hits.
His between song anecdotes range from the hilarious to the endearing and we heard by way of explanation that he feels that his playing, which is in a constant state of development, has reached a point of sufficient maturity that he wanted to revisit some of his favourite and much-loved songs from his past and re-present them with all of the skill and nuance he has gained over the years. Ladies and gentlemen, it was a truly magical set of glorious songs we were given.
The little venue is utterly perfect for an intimate acoustic gig like this, and both artists obviously appreciated the closeness and attentiveness of the audience. The sound was properly excellent – nothing distorted, never too loud, crystal clarity and precise detail.
This morning, with the songs still circling my consciousness, I’ve invested in a couple of back catalogue albums, but more than these, the one I’m really interested in hearing again is the one we had played for us last night. I feel it will become one of mine if I ever reach that island.
The last of the four nights when you can see both Katie and John on this tour is happening tonight in The Bristol Beacon. I can’t promise the same degree of intimate containment we had in Corsham, but if you are in reach of the Beacon (what was once The Colston Hall) I’d urge you to go straight to the Box Office and do yourself a favour.
On guy, one girl, six guitars; it’s all you need for a great night out.
The audience:
100 seats, all taken. Quiet, considerate, appreciative. All ages. Couldn’t ask for more. Top venue.
It made me think..
How lucky was that? Two performers at the tops of their games for the price of one, twenty minutes from the gated luxury of Foxy Towers. Almost unbelievable.
That’s a gorgeous, very more-ish track.
Oh yes. John Smith. Glad you had such a lucky find. He was on the last day at Sidmouth this year, but I’ve seen him many times before, and in all sorts of venues – Band on the Wall, a chapel in Salford, the Green Room, at the back of the Phil in Liverpool.
I’ve seen John Smith a few times. The first time was when my wife and I visited Portland and saw, as we wandered around town, that the Lovely Lisa Hannigan was playing that evening. John Smith was support and joined her band for some of her songs and a few duets. He was a revelation. I can’t help thinking he’d be a bigger name if his name wasn’t so anonymous.