Show of Hands bring it full circle as they return to a favourite venue
They’re one of the biggest names in the folk world – reliable festival headliners with legions of fans.
But Show of Hands are currently on their Full Circle tour – which they say will be their last.
Over the course of more than three decades, singersongwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer have played everywhere from village halls to The Royal Albert Hall (six times, no less). For many years now they’ve often been joined by bassist Miranda Sykes.
And on this final lap, they are returning to Portsmouth’s New Theatre Royal, a venue they’re very familiar with – they played its reopening concert in 2015 after an extensive refit.
With the tour having seen the band play numerous village halls and arts centres, this leg focuses on the bigger venues.
"We’ve always done a mixture,” says Steve, “even after the Albert Hall we did a village hall the following week.
"We never see it like a league table - being promoted upwards, or relegated to smaller venues, we just see it as nice days when we're performing.
It's a smaller production in those venues, just Phil and I, without bringing the lights and the big PA, but it's been great. We've been hooking up with a lot of people, a lot of them only started promoting shows themselves because of the way we go about it. They don't have to take any financial risks – there must have been about a dozen people on this tour who are now using that structure which is lovely. We've created a community for live music.”
While they have described it as the last tour, it’s not the end for the pair.
“We've not really been thinking about it like that (as the end), we're just getting ready for another show.
"We'll get involved in projects – if there's a concert cruise, or a special event, or maybe a fundraiser, who knows? We had a great time (last year) with Michael Wood, the historian, on the Songs of The People tour, so there'll be stuff like that.
"We'll go back to basics, then in a couple of years and see where we both are. There's no falling out or anything like that.
“Phil's got a lot of recording and producing he needs to do, I've got a solo album and tour with a new agency, and I've got this Dream In Colours festival planned that I'm putting together.”
As to highlights from Show of Hands’ career, Steve says it’s not the obvious things.
“There's been so many – people tend to think it's always the Royal Albert
Hall and festivals, but we work it so that we have very enjoyable days. It's not been inner city work, really.
The sorts of shows we tend to do, tend to be more of the Winchesters and the Chichesters, rather than the middle of Sheffield or Leeds or Bradford – it's not really inner city, black box music, it's nice theatres in nice places. I know that sounds a bit middle-class, but it means you have a nice day! And then you play music to people who are pleased to see you and pat you on the back and tell you that you're great – what's not to like?”
He also points to working with exiled Chilean musicians in the ’90s, and more recently Track Dogs, from Madrid: "Music relies on people collaborating and it relies on people breaking the rules, and crossfertilisation of creativity.”
They play the NTR on Sunday. Go to newtheatreroyal.com.