Bellowhead officially broke up back in 2016 after about a decade of proving to people that folk music doesn’t need to be about with beards wearing knitwear. Back then it was as Jon Boden, the enigmatic lead singer, wanted to pursue other projects. In 2020 they did a one-off online concert and last year teased some important news, before announcing this tour taking in most of November 2022. So, time to re-live it all again and introduce some new fans along the way too.

Tonight’s gig started with Sam Sweeney coming back (he supported too) onto a darkened stage with a set of bagpipes with the first few notes of ‘Byker Hill’ from their album ‘Broadside’ a few the tracks tonight are from the same album as it is the 10-year anniversary of its release. It was clear from the start, everything that had made them unique before was back, about 10 members of the band including a brass and strings section. Next up was fan favourite ’10,000 Miles’ about the process of deporting undesirable people to Australia a couple of hundred years ago, looks like they have renewed that policy with Matt Hancock o TV at the moment.

The songs are all very varied too with ‘Betsy Baker’ and ‘Wife of Ushers Well’ up next, one being a soaring vocal epic and the latter being a sinister sounding ghost story, complete with darkened stage for full effect. The atmosphere had been euphoric for the start. About a third of the way through that was taken back for one song in a tribute to Paul Sartin, one of the original founding members who sadly died earlier this year. It was solemn yet fitting tribute with his vocals being used for ‘Brisk Lad’ apparently written by one of his ancestors, while the rest of the band stood in silence on a darkened stage. You could see several the band members were visibly finding it quite emotional.

The pace was picked back up with ‘March Past’ being next up, the venue was all seated but by this stage a silent revolution was starting with the odd few starting to stand in the aisles. ‘Blackbeetle Pies’ soon came along where Benji Kirkpatrick takes lead vocal role in quite an interesting song but almost has quite disturbing element, not just the fact that genuinely was a dish. Hopefully the catering team in the venue had not gone any ideas. The number of dancers grew ever more prominent with a rousing version of ‘Lillibulero’ which dates from 1688 but had people in 2022 hollering along. This is one of the joys of Bellowhead, they take a traditional folk song and play them in a way reminiscent of a rock concert with the bass and drums high in the mix, almost making a wall of noise.

More crowd participation was encouraged with the sea shanty ‘Roll Alabama’ with the crowd singing back the title part, not that much singing had really been needed to be encouraged. Most of the crowd seemed to recall the songs well from six years or more ago. ‘Sloe Gin’ is a selection of dance tunes, as John Spiers the squeezebox player was keen to point out. The cue for anybody that had not succumb to dancing yet, and was able to, their instructions to get up and enjoy it fully get moving. The band seem to thrive more from the crowd jumping around too, although it was great to have them in my hometown I wonder if venues with dedicated standing would have been better.

We were now into the energetic finale of the event, with a bit more crowd participation needed during ‘London Town’ which has a form of choreography by the audience. The lyrics include “up to the rigs, down to the jigs” which simply involves everyone pointing in said direction, simple but very atmospheric. Next was ‘New York Girls’ with even more dancing on show, this time by the band with the brass section doing a little jig. Following the break for the encore we had ‘Roll The Woodpile Down’ another uplifting crowed favourite and final song then came of ‘Frogs Legs and Dragons Teeth’ the tune they have pretty much always ended their set on. But a pretty amazing one at that, with a moment about halfway through where the whole band crouch low before bounding into the air, copied by the crowd all of whom were now on their feet.

This reminded us why we need Bellowhead in the world, they really do offer something that nobody else does in quite the same way. Folk tunes that you can enjoy whether you like folk or not really as they don’t make it sound like folk. It’s also such a talented bunch of musicians, most of them swap instruments at least once, with special mention for Sam Sweeney who managed violin, bagpipes and drums at least. Here’s hoping this is not their last tour and they see just how much they are loved, talking to Sam later it seems it’s still under discussion, let us know who we need to lobby to make sure we get to see this again.