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Show of Hands – Final night of the Full Circle tour

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Venue:

Exmouth Pavilion

Date: 02/12/2023

Show of Hands, having decided to take an indefinite break from playing and touring together, wound up ‘Phase 1’ of their lap of honour selling out three nights at the Exmouth Pavilion. The venue has become the traditional local homecoming for the band at the end of their autumn tours in recent years, and it is always great to see the place packed out for the local heroes. It was bittersweet – the whole audience knew this may be the last time they will see SoH with the incomparable Miranda Sykes, so they savoured every moment of an evening that seemed to fly by far too quickly.

The first set consisted of the three either playing solo or in various duo combinations, whilst the second set was a triumphant run of some of their best known songs from their 30 odd years together. Miranda was visibly emotional towards the end of the show, and she graciously thanked Phil and Steve for the last twenty years when she has regularly played with them.

Show of Hands perhaps have never really had the recognition they deserved – whilst being very well known within what most people would call the Folk music world, they never quite broke through to gain a wider audience. They are one of those bands that everyone falls in love with if introduced to them, particularly in a live setting where their musicianship, voices and songs really shine, not to mention the humour and storytelling. Steve Knightley is a great songwriter, whilst Phil shines as a wonderful multi-instrumentalist as well as a distinctive and fine vocalist, and Miranda’s soaring pure voice and terrific double bass playing add the finishing touches.

In recent years it seemed that the fates worked against them in a cruel way. They recruited Cormack Byrne on percussion, and it really did feel that they had found the perfect new piece in the musical jigsaw. They recorded the magnificent Battlefield Dancefloor album, where they reached into perhaps more general listener territory. The album was released with a big label backing, even pressing it up on double vinyl. It had great reviews and sold well, and the band were looking forward to major festival appearances in 2020. Well, we all know what happened that year. I think that was a huge blow. Cormack never returned and Miranda was missing on one tour because they had taken such a financial hit – a illustration, if one were needed, of the effect of the pandemic on professional musicians.

In the immediate future, Steve and Phil will be embarking on ‘Phase 2’ as a duo, revisiting some of the smaller venues that gave them a start all those years ago, and then Miranda joins for one more hurrah at Abbotsbury in July (it is already sold out), where Steve and Phil will also introduce their new bands – Phil has formed the Phil Beer Trio, which includes Miranda Sykes and Sian Monaghan, and Steve Knightley has recruited a previous collaborator in Johnny Kalsi from the Afro Celts into a four piece called Dream in Colours.

I will miss them terribly, but they will still all be playing somewhere….and I wouldn’t bet against a reunion somewhere down the line.

Set 1:
1. Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits cover) (Steve Knightley solo)
2. The Ride (Steve Knightley solo)
3. The Long Way Home (Steve Knightley and Phil Beer)
4. Weathercock (Jethro Tull cover) (Phil Beer solo)
5. Maid of Amsterdam (Nils Brown cover) (Phil Beer solo)
6. An Angel (Phil Beer and Miranda Sykes)
7. When You Think It’s All Over (Miranda Sykes solo)
8. What’s The Use Of Wings If You Can’t Fly (Miranda Sykes solo)
9. Keep Hauling (Andrew Cadie cover)
10.
Set 2:
11. Roots
12. You’ll Get By
13. Secret World (Peter Gabriel cover)
14. Arrogance Ignorance and Greed
15. Exile
16. Galway Farmer
17. The Blue Cockade
18. The Crow on the Cradle (Sydney Carter cover)
19. Country Life
20. Santiago
21. The Best One Yet (inc. snippets of ‘In the Summertime’, ‘Drift Away’, ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ & ‘Here Comes the Sun’)
Encore:
22. Cousin Jack
23. The Setting / Mary From Dungloe

The audience:

Predominately 60 plus.

It made me think..

They built a huge local following over the years – to sell out 3 nights at a 500 seater venue in December is no mean feat.

1

Comments

  1. When I saw Steve solo at the Green Note in Camden recently he had lost his voice. As it was a small, intimate show, he didn’t cancel but turned it into an afternoon of anecdote and Q+A with a couple of songs. Obviously one of the questions was, ‘Is this really the end of Show of Hands?’

    Steve said something along the lines of it being more like a deliberate decision not to make any plans for the immediate future. Although they have always been careful to work on other projects separately SOH has dominated their working lives for well over 20 years, so it must be refreshing to take a break.

  2. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them a couple of times, once as a duo and once as a trio with Miranda, and they did a great turn on both occasions.

    It’s a real shame that, as Nigel says, they’ve never quite hit the big time. They’re great musicians, their own lyrics often have a good point to make, and they have a lot of top tunes in their toolbox.

    Here’s hoping they achieve more success, in the studio and (fingers crossed) on the road together at some point.

  3. It was shock for me to realise, a year or two back, that they were heading into amongst my most regularly seen acts, between umpteen festivals, duo and trio gigs, solo gigs, the Phil Beer band being an especially good night out. Miranda Sykes solo is also pretty damn good, let alone when Track Dogs bolt on to the SoH or Knightley solo experience. I will miss ‘em, but have ticket for their final duo tour, in Lichfield.
    I have chatted with Steve Knightley a number of times; his wife is a Gp I met first, and he is a thoroughly decent dude, with no front, just loving the job he does, if also not unaware of the ridiculousness of it all. Hard to believe the bastard’s 69 too, with that head of hair….

  6. I first became aware of Show Of Hands after they won Best Live Act at the BBC Folk Awards in 2004(?) but only bought an album by them a couple of years later the excellent comp Roots. That set me off acquiring their discography, not a dud amongst them and seeing them live and solo many times. Every show, no matter the formation superb

    Let’s hope they continue to record in their new configurations and maybe get together every now and then

    Show Of Hands deserved more acclaim for their original approach to folk music, thank you for the review @NigelT

    • From the SOH Wiki page:

      Featured on Witness, Show of Hands’ song Roots, was released as a single in 2008 (Hands On Music). A rousing riposte to Kim Howell’s 2001 remark “the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell”(when Under Secretary of State for Culture and Sport), the song calls for a celebration of British culture in its diversity.[72] However, it was misappropriated by the BNP.[72] Beer and Knightley forced the BNP to stop using the track and helped to launch ‘’Folk Against Fascism’’, giving ‘’Roots’’ to the movement’s eponymous 2010 double album

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