Steeleye Span Sage Gateshead Dec 16 2009
Another band celebrating 40 years together with an anniversary tour. I was never a massive fan of Steeleye, but I did see them a few times in the 1970s, the first being as support for Jethro Tull on the Aqualung tour at Sunderland Empire. I also recall seeing them at Newcastle City Hall (with the great Amazing Blondell as support), the Grangemouth Festival in Scotland in 1972 or 73 and a wonderful night at Middlesbrough Town Hall around the time All Around My Hat was in the charts where Maddy danced up and down the aisles, big skirts twirling, to the delight of the packed hall.
So some 30 years or more on from my last Steeleye encounter I was in the cheap seats upstairs in the Sage to see what the band were like now. The show was in two halves with an interval, and the hall was pretty full with levels 1 and 2 packed and level 3 quite full. The set was just what I had expected and hoped for, a good mix of their own particular brand of folk-rock. Maddy Prior looks great and dances just as she did all those years ago (she didn’t venture into the aisles this time). The rest of the band are all great musicians and the sound was clear and crisp as it often is in the lovely Sage concert hall. I can’t pretend to have recognised many of the songs, but I enjoyed them all the same. The encore was All Around My Hat to which we all sang along. A great evenings entertainment, which relived some old memories for me. It was nice to see them again.
website: http://steeleye.freeservers.com/
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