Billie Maree Band – The Barrelhouse, Totnes: Live!

Special Guest

1 year ago

Billie Maree Band, Anna Ling – The Barrelhouse, Totnes – Friday 25th April 2025

An ebullient set from Totnes’s favourite young folkie

“Blackbirds are monogamous,” deadpans support act Anna Ling. “Well, ish.”

A merry titter of laughter from this nicely full room – mostly seated, because Anna, our support act, said we could sit – sums up the Barrelhouse Ballroom vibe perfectly this evening. Maybe because it’s nearly Beltane? Sunshine energy abounds. Even Anna’s new breakup song kicks off with an image of an overgrown garden.

Joy personified, Anna Ling is all rosy cheeks and golden hair, sharing mellifluous melodies from her forthcoming album and an intriguing new project – songs written from the perspective of birds. The crowd cheerfully participates in a noisy middle-eight dawn chorus, laughing along as Anna says “this is the closest I get to shredding” while picking out a fetching riff.

Billie Maree – headliner, local folk muse – has an uncanny ability to oscillate between earnest intensity and a very charming strain of self-assured klutziness. By turns summoning ethereal Dartmoor goddesses with her strong, supple voice, the next moment endearingly corpsing after heading the microphone, again, then again. And – gasp! – a confession of an overdose:

“I’ve been on the camomile. Shouldn’t be allowed it before 5pm. The dance of the uppers and downers, Totnes-style.”

In a long set spanning material both familiar and fresh – “this song is so new it doesn’t have a verse yet – but the chorus is so good I had to share it” – Billie holds us all rapt. And my gosh, the band is brilliant. Aidan Watson keeps everything rolling with his rattling arsenal of jingle-jangle percussion. Ever-smiling Flo Fields is revelatory, picking out nimble pizzicato licks. Jamie Leeds lends an ecstatic electric guitar gloss. Billie’s brother Jojo Oakes-Monger – quite the dreamboat, just saying – is bedrock solid. And it’s his big day.

“We’re going to sing an extremely ancient song for you now guys,” says Billie with quiet earnestness and conviction, before launching into an especially rowdy chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.

Spirited and sprightly, this evening as a whole is uplifting, and very often laugh-out loud funny. Part Enya, part Ed Byrne. A pan-dimensional folk odyssey, from a somewhat silly Billie. Music that’s epic in scope, but equally never loses that magical twinkle in its eye.

Andy Hill