Gigspanner Big Band – The Met, Bury – Sunday 20th April 2025

It’s always a happy day when we can bring one of the many forms of Gigspanner to the barrier. Most recently it’s been with the Gigspanner Big Band’s Turnstone album, which aside from our own glowing coverage, has wowed the critics and more importantly, the folk community.

AN EASTER TREAT

The Turnstone album launch tour comes to The Met where there’s a live stream courtesy of FolkScape (who allow those at home along with us in the room with a 70-200mm lens the chance to admire Hannah Martin’s glittery eye shadow) plus it’s Easter Sunday. Celebrations of resurrection, eternal life and chocolate can be parked for an evening of what we noted at a live encounter back in 2022, as unmissable. The rose tinted varifocals have been donned. We need no convincing. An embarrassment of riches…the greater sum of some very big parts…etc, the Gigspanner Big Band specialty is striding confidently from one highlight to another.

And as Squeezy John Spiers teased on the social media, the focus is playing a whole load of new music from Turnstone. Indeed the opening gambit is the trio of the sprightly bounce of Suffolk Miracle, Sovay and Silver Dagger as per the album running order. Selecting from an arsenal of Dobro guitars, Phillip Henry makes an early bid for man of the match with some steely yet subtle Dobro which is his forte for the evening. Sovay also see Roger Flack switch from electric bass to electric guitar to strike some fearsome but restrained power chords and even indulge in a guitar solo.

THE SMELL OF THE SEA

By contrast, Hannah lulls us with a lullaby swing to Silver Dagger. Even Squeezy is eyes closed and drifting with the flow. Peter Knight is face to face with the Dobro, alternating between plucking and bowing his fiddle and not for the first time in the set, you’re willing them to just go with it and see where the music leads. New album songs ticked off for the now, John Spiers takes us back to Natural Invention and the Haul On The Bowline sea shanty. It’s one that has “a lot of chorus” – those boys must have been worked hard. You can almost smell the sea and feel the sting of the sea salt spray on your face and if you want to know what the rolling waves of the sea really sound like, cock an ear at the instrumental passage in the song.

Ahead of Hind Horn (just eighteen verses for GBB rather than the thousand verse option), Hannah explains what may well be the key to the Gigspanner magic and appeal. The formula relying on a simple philosophy of the six players having an even say in the arrangement. “A lovely Utopian philosophy,” she admits. Verging on a hippy ideal (man). Joking aside, it certainly works and Hind Horn a perfect example of how the sextet build a piece that might begin in a fragile and gentle fashion but builds until they’re at full tilt.

FULL TILT – AGAIN

Peter Knight – surely the man who plays the violin at a level to which Sherlock Holmes would aspire – talks about “a little tune to go on the end” of Hard Times Come Again No More. An odds on contender for understatement of the year. Yes, the main song may be sombre and akin to a chapel hymn when the six voices make of the chorus, but the mournful vibe is stretched so that the release is even more powerful. A thumping pulse and uplifting melody that would threaten to raise the roof as Arthur Peter’s reel ends the first set on a high. It also begs the thought that the other big band that John Spiers does a turn with would have some fun with this tune.

GET YOUR GEN-YOU-INE GIGSPANNER ‘ERE

With the retail outlet closed until after the show for the purchase of Turnstone (shame if you haven’t got a copy) and the real life gigspanners (bottle openers…what a marketing ploy!), the second set sees the busy percussion pattern and a Henry guitar line that crosses Graceland with Eighties King Crimson make Betsy Williams perfect for getting back in the swing. There’s also a hint of John Bonham hi-hat from Sacha Trochet – once heard it you can’t unhear it. A two fiddle jig and Roger Flack grooving on a thick bassline and no further warm up is needed.

A pairing as unavoidable as Batman and Robin, Barbie and Ken…etc, where there’s John Spiers, there’s a Morris tune. The older, more obscure and dustier the better. Imagine a boxing ring MC – ” Lost since 1800!!”, his Sweet Highland Mary creates a fusion with What Wondrous Love Is This that’s given a tribal thud and exotic Eastern swing. Oh, and once you’ve heard the ‘Bonham hi-hat’….

And as much as Hannah Martin has explained the GBB raison d’etre, they head off into improvised territory on When Fortune Turns Her Wheel . “A song for absent friends” in an “exciting but terrifying” adventure. The Knight/Henry connection once again complementing one another and it’s not only those in the audience, but the rest of the band that look on in admiration.

A FRANTIC FINALE

As the Henry/Martin Courting Is A Pleasure again gets ‘gigspannered’ and Squeezy John takes the lead vocal for The Rolling Of The Stones, we head back to the earlier days of the expanded Gigspanner for The Boy That Wouldn’t Hoe Corn in a Phillip Henry inspired finale.

The gig notes say “Henry on the loose!” as his bandmates line up to take a duel with him. First up is Hannah in a reminder that they have a backstory as Edgelarks, then Roger Flack on acoustic guitar. The latter earning a rare spontaneous ripple from the Met goers. He veers off into the bluesy and winding sort of avenues that would make Jimmy Page proud. Just lacking the Page pursed lip pout. Not to miss a turn, the man to whom the band once tagged their name (and the one with the least amount of gear on a stage where the cabling resembles a snakes wedding, takes the solo spotlight as the five surround the drum riser for a frantic finale.

HE’LL LOVE DOING THIS LIVE

Doing the sensible thing and avoiding the leave stage/return to stage encore kerfuffle, we get the chance to appreciate our reviewers “he’ll love doing this live” comment on the Northern Frisk medley. “Some new tunes – well, old tunes,” says Squeezy John, but we know what he means. Yes it’s jaunty; yes, it may be a little overlong on an album that plays for over an hour before it appears, but live, it’s a beast. To quote us again, it is indeed “a rousing medley – folk rock without the rock but plenty of roll.” The Whistle Test harmonica at stage right, John Spiers, feet apart like the Colossus of Rhodes, shoulder rolling at stage left, the pair flanking the pistons pumping stage centre.

A genuinely marvellous evening. We head out into the Bury night purring contentedly and with no a hint of shameless self promotion, we can’t help thinking that we told you so.

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