Word July 2008 by Jim Irvin
The Last Word Music DVDs

Genesis And Revelations
Phil Collins and friends win over at least one doubter, plus Ani DiFranco, New Order and Show Of Hands

Download the full article as a PDF file. Click here. (1.2mb)

I have been moved by two blokes in a farmers market and a dinosaur trudging through Poland. The two blokes trade as Show of Hands, one of those acts one's heard of but kows little about; the dinosaur is Genesis, an act too familiar to want to hear again. Both, however, sneaked up and delivered a sucker punch this month. The result: tears of respectful pleasure after a reminder of music's power.

Around the time Genesis were playing to half a million in Rome, Show of Hands were drawing a few hundred to cafes and pubs in their hometown, Topsham, Devon, a warm-up with some homies before their third sell-out appearance at the Rpyal Albert Hall. Yes, that's right, this modest folk duo fills the RAH every so often. Tour of Topsham (Hands On) shows you why. Steve Knightley has an instantly appealing voice and writes stirring songs - one in particular, The Dive, is utterly transfixing. Knightley's partner in the band, multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer, could probably extract a heart pumping tune from a cheese roll. The mood is relaxed to the point of amateurish but when they lock into songs like Widecombe Rair, Roots and - hello? - No Woman No Cry you immediately understand their appeal.

What is most cheering is that this is possible: a decent living from acottage industry. It's taken them a while, but they're great, they did it themselves and no one could begrudge them milking the last drop of applause at the RAH.

WITNESS
Promoters can download the WITNESS reviews as a PDF file. Click here. (115kb)

Mojo July 06

SATURDAY TELEGRAPH 13.5.06
Not many junior ministers find their bons mots preserved in song, and Kim Howells may wish that Steve Knightley, half of Show of Hands, had not chosen to make his an exception.

Howells is renowned for two outbursts as culture minister: denouncing Turner Prize contenders as "cold mechanical, conceptual bullshit" and defending his government's "three-in-a-bar" assault on live music by saying that listening to three Somerset folk singers was his idea of hell.

Roots, Knightley's best song on Witness, is confined to the second observation, offering as a different hellish vision "pubs where no one ever sings at all/and everyone stares at a great big screen/overpaid soccer stars/prancing teens/Australian soaps/American rap/estuary English/baseball caps".

Knightley and Phil Beer champion a counterculture. With scant mainstream media exposure, they have built a mighty, word-of-mouth following that fills venues from Northern arts centres to the Albert Hall.

This is Show of Hands in intelligent, compelling and imaginative form, full of expert musicianship and driven by West Country themes that have more to do with work migration and rowdy nights on Union Street than cream teas and idyllic coves.
Colin Randall

SONGLiNES June 2006 issue
A rural landscape painting in angry graffiti

In 2007 the balance will tip and more people will live an urban than a rural life. On the face of it, the role Show of Hands have given themselves may seem a thankless one – that of voice and champion for the rural poor of the west of England. But the more I hear of them the more I feel they are giving a voice to an entire movement of people who do not want to live in a hyper-consumer urban hinterland.

Witness is a dark album. Singer-songwriter Steve Knightley describes it as a cinematic journey through the West Country. He and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer truly conjure up a sense of place, with the voice of Miranda Sykes startlingly effective alongside Knightley’s rough gravel tones.

The plaintive ‘Undertow’, with its young person’s dreams of ‘catchin’ waves all day’ in Australia, or the genuinely cinematic ‘The Bet’ with its hushed names of West Country towns, give a sense of time and place as romantic as the hard-bitten landscape of Bruce Springsteen’s New Jersey.

And the second song, ‘Roots’, is probably their manifesto. It is an urgent and angry revolutionary cry to the youth of the nation to recover their identity, centred around former minister of state Kim Howells’ personal idea of hell – ‘three Somerset folk singers in a local pub’. It rails at an ignorant establishment and demands the St George’s flag back from baseball-capped boys in pubs full of piped music. This is a beautiful portrait of modern rural Britain – intensely compassionate and filled with carefully contained rage.
Nathaniel Handy

HMVChoice June/July Issue
English folk favourites team up
with Afro-Celts in winning style

Without a single flashbulb of mainstream exposure, the folk duo of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer
have built a large and dedicated fan base simply by playing every folk club and festival in the land and delivering English roots music of the highest quality. Incredibly, they’ve sold out the Albert Hall twice – and yet they remain criminally ignored by all but the specialist folk media. Perhaps Witness is
the album finally to change all that and deliver them the wider recognition they richly deserve.

With a sparkling, technicolour production by Simon Emmerson and Simon ‘Mass’ Massey of the Grammywinning Afro-Celt Sound System, they’ve gone and made their most innovative studio album to date. Knightley’s highly literate, original songs and acoustic guitar are expertly embellished by Beer’s multiinstrumental skills on fiddle, mandolin and melodeon, while folk wonderkidof-
the-moment (and fellow Devon resident) Seth Lakeman helps out on guitar and backing vocals. But it’s the subtle but dynamic drum programming from those Afro-Celt boys that marks this out as a landmark album.
Nigel Williamson

SPIRAL EARTH (www.spiralearth.co.uk)
Witness album review
Show Of Hands are widely touted as 'England's most popular acoustic roots duo', Witness confirms that they are also the most innovative, observant and relevant English musicians around.

Production by Simon Emmerson and Simon Massey has resulted in a confident enveloping sound, the mixing accentuates the layers of vocals and instrumentation. It's not a huge departure from their past work yet it feels more coloured, surer of itself. Beer and Knightley's musicianship is, as we have come to expect, of the highest order. The alchemy between them is in their arrangements, lifting their music away from divides of genre.

Never one to avoid harsh reality, Knightley has penned another of his acerbic epics in the second track Roots. We are living in confusing times, we have a government that is less in touch with the people and the country every day, a government which has never been in touch with rural affairs. Where Country Life decried this lack of understanding by our city bound politicians Roots takes the bit between it's teeth and gets to the heart of what it means to be English. Putting it succinctly:

'Without our stories or our songs
how will we know where we've come from?
I've lost St George in the Union Jack
It's my flag too and I want it Back'

This where Show Of Hands are so damn relevant, From their West Country roots they have picked apart the fabric of our country and are holding up the warp and weft for our inspection. Whether we heed the warning is up to us.

The sense of place is as strong as ever, Knightley says 'Every original song on the CD is a first person narrative or testimonial. incidents and events are witnessed and recorded and every narrator is a different character. It's really a series of scenes from a cinematic style journey of the West Country.'

It's their connection to their roots that results in the timeless feel of many of the tracks, thankfully Phil Beer gets to sing the lead on a couple of tracks on this album. He has a great voice and it's good to hear it on some upbeat songs, notably the foot stomping Falmouth Packet/Haul Away Joe.

Knightley's writing reveals a deep understanding of the human condition, and often the conflicting joy and melancholy that lies at it's heart. The closing track All I'd Ever Lost is a touching evocation of life's triumphs and regrets.

Everything has come together perfectly on this recording, the best Show Of Hands album ever? it's certainly the best album we've heard so far this year...
Iain Hazlewood

Witness single review 20.3.06
2006 will be a big year for Show Of Hands, their first single in ten years Witness is released in may. Penned by Knightley, who writes the majority of the duo’s diverse material, it is inspired by members of a Devon commune and the way their alternative lifestyle weaves in with the outside world.
A song with tangible theatricality and strident impact, it features strong vocals from Knightley, driving rhythms and dynamic fiddle playing from Beer. Fellow Devonian Seth Lakeman guests on tenor guitar and vocals.

Formed in 1991 by Steve Knightley and Phil Beer, both highly regarded musicians in their own right. They are widely regarded as the best acoustic roots duo on the current scene.
One of the hardest touring acts around, they do a major tour every year, taking in large and small venues, as well as several festivals.

Both multi-instrumentalists their music feature guitars, mandocello, fiddle, cuatro, viola and concertina. Their passionate and powerful music is set against the virtuosity of their vocals and harmonies. Their recordings of original material (and trad arangements) often take their subject matter from the Westcountry where they are based, 2003's The Path is an instrumental celebration of the sights and sounds of the West Country coast line.

In some ways their defining album, is Country Life. Compressing a huge range of musical styles into its thirteen tracks, from the politically charged title song to the soft summery spanish guitar on Suntrap it is of such a consistently high quality that it won praise across the board, Q magazine naming it their folk album of the year.

2006 sees a new album Witness, it marks a collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Simon Emmerson and ‘Mass’ (Simon Massey) of Afro Celts fame. It marks a new twist on the genre- defying Show of Hands sound – rich and deliberate with an increasingly inventive and bold musicality that often leans more towards rock than folk.

Show Of Hands also pride themselves on their closenesss to their fans, their web site has in-depth info on the band, downloads and reviews. They have had over 17,000 signups to their email newsletter.

MUSICIAN MAGAZINE (journal of The Musicians' Union)
"A gem of contemporary English folk ... many months of hard graft have evidently gone into making this album and boy are the results worthwhile"

Country Life
Promoters can download the Country Life reviews as a PDF file. Click here. (32kb)

The Independent on Sunday
18th Jan 2004
Country Folk (Not!) ****
The enigmatic acoustic duo Show of Hands are formidable operators in the roots arena. They've been likened to U2, "Crowded House without the drums" and, in the case of songwriter Steve Knightley, Bruce Springsteen. You'll gather then, that this is by no means off-the-peg folk music, and that they are as likely to be seen playing the Royal Albert Hall as their home county of Devon. Country Life represents a new move towards the mainstream. The title track is a finely-honed rock rant on the desecration of English country life, complete with punning agri-barons "cap in hand", while their haunting take on the trad. folk classic "Reynardine" is arguably the best since Fairport Convention's. A class act.
Jane Brace

The Daily Telegraph
8th November 2003
A bitter blast from rural Britain launches the new album from one of the classiest of folk duos. "No trains, no jobs, no shops, no pubs," they cry with enough force to make townies feel thoroughly ashamed. The choice of grievances is meant to distance Show of Hands from Tory squires and countryside marchers, a respectable but flawed approach that overlooks the inconvenient reality that the issues often unite rather than divide people. But folk music was never intended to be even-handed, and, while they have never truly been folk's angriest folk, Steve Knightley and Phil Beer take it upon themselves to articulate the disaffection felt by a large body of the population. Country - especially West Country - themes extend throughout this compelling CD, which comes complete with a video of the pair in action live. Knightley writes punchy, literate songs that he and Beer sing and play with impeccable professionalism and flair. Track for track, it may be their best yet.
Colin Randall

Western Morning News
5th December 2003
This could be the breakthrough album for the Westcountry acoustic duo Show of Hands. Often pigeonholed as a folk act, their latest album Country Life sees them cross a range of musical divides and further defy the stereotype.
They have released the title track as their single, which, although much praised for its fantastic production, has already been classed as "too political" in some quarters. Talk of empty holiday cottages, closing pubs and cattle burning on pyres does not make it an easy listen for the majority of the record-buying public.
A far more obvious choice, is the excellent Hard Shoulder, which with its strong narrative has definite shades of a Springsteen ballad.
Perhaps more importantly it is about something everyone can relate to - relationships from our youth and breaking down on the motorway. And the Spanish guitar on Suntrap perfectly captures the lazy frisson of the hot days of summer. What sets the album apart is the range of musical styles on the album which show the skill and versatility of powerful vocals of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer's musical talents. The CD is beautifully packaged and also comes with a CD ROM featuring the promotional video for the title track, and footage of Show of Hands live at the Royal Albert Hall, which was filmed for a television special by Carlton TV.
Andrea Kuhn

Uncut ***
February 2004
Guesting on Tom Robinson's Radio 6 show recently, he blind-played a Show of Hands track and invited me to guess its provenance. I hazarded Kentucky. The answer turned out to be Devon. I tried it on friends and nobody had a clue. Yet the West Country acoustic duo have serious form as stalwarts of the English roots scene. Phil Beer has played mandolin for the Rolling Stones (a distinction shared with Ry Cooder) and Steve Knightley was all over Mick Jagger's last solo record. Their latest Country Life, cleverly mixes English and American influences with pleasing
echoes of both Richard Thompson and Steve Earle.
A revelation.
Nigel Williamson
Tom Robinson

Six music
..Also, protest music is alive and well with SHOW OF HANDS. They have a
new album "Country Life" - the title track is one of Steve Knightley's
finest songs ever, and the whole album is an absolutely stunning package.

Mojo 2*
February 2004
The duo of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer are an object lesson in grass roots marketing, as their rabid following and two recent shows at London's Royal Albert Hall testify. They offer a one-stop shop for folk with Knightley's neatly structured songs as the centerpiece. But they still don't have the tools to deliver the gravitas or depth suggested by the impressively elaborate sleeve."
Colin Irwin

'Show of Hands' - the track records release
One of the enduring questions of life - above the meaning of life but below “The aristocracy - why?” - asks why there should be such a low profile for English folk music, even for legends of the scene. My own theory is that, in contrast to Ireland and Scotland say, all too many English people still voluntarily pigeon-hole themselves in terms of music, defining themselves as much in terms of what they won't listen to as what they will.
The presence of this and other sites dedicated to musical exploration, as well as the ever increasing success of Womad and the Cambridge Folk Festival among others, do happily suggest that this state of affairs is gradually being eroded. It's just as well, because the idea that an act as marvellous as Show of Hands is only known to folk fans - wise and lucky souls - and not tot he nation at large is, quite frankly, a scandal. They are fantastic! SteveKnightley and Phil Beer's subject matter, dealt with in ways ranging from heartfelt to witty but always intelligent and lyrical, includes topics many songwriters would be unable to approach as perceptively. The Bristol Slaver not only highlights the role of “the Triangular Trade” in bringing prosperity but also unwillingness today to face up to the past: a societythat denies its past fails to understand its present and thus imperils its future. The myth of discovery is shattered and its grisly repercussions laid bare in the tragic, scathing Columbus (Didn't Find America) and Tall Ships explores the world of a generally covered up element of this country's maritime past - the wreckers. Cutthroats, Crooks And Conmen brings us face to face with more modern threats - the privatising carpetbaggers charging you for what was already yours.
Along with Knightley's own songs there are fine arrangements of traditional numbers and some first-rate interpretations of such folk classics as The Crow On The Cradle, which I first came across on Mary Black's Without the Fanfare album. Perhaps because of many years involvement with the development agency Concern, my current favourite is themoving and dignified Exile, a song inspired by Ethiopian refugees in the1980's. I can not recommend this double CD compilation of the work of Show of Hands too highly. It is quite simply one of the finest folk collections - forget that, any collections - I have ever heard. (DM) www.revolutionsuk.com

Dark Fields
An astounding album from Show of Hands. A bigger, fuller sound to this CD, aiming at a wider market, and encompassing all the influences hinted at on earlier albums. Bob Dylan's, 'Farewell Angelina' lends an almost country feel to the album, while the cold menace of 'Flora' and the grand sweep of 'Cousin Jack take us through the whole emotional spectrum. The 'live' feel is still there, one track actually recorded on the legendary 'Five Days in May' tour earlier in 1997, and featuring Kate Rusby, Chris Wood and Andy Cutting. Many other musicians have lent their talents to this album, but one of the great moments of modern acoustic music must certainly be the title track, a sublime duet with Steve Knightley and the silky female voice of Chris While that tears at every heart string.
Yorkshire Evening Press 'Stunning! Acoustic duo Steve Knightley and Phil Beer on top form with their latest album, which comes complete with songbook. Two more memorable characters can now be added to Knightley's rogues gallery: the Cornish miner in Cousin Jack; and the Poacher in Longdog, which rattles along with Beer on fiddle...'
Colin Randall, Daily Telegraph '...the range of themes, the thoughtful lyricism and mood shifts...outstanding in a comprehensively appealing set.'
Tony Slinger, Venue Magazine 'When you pick up a SOH album, you automatically expect top quality songs, stunning vocals, wonderful harmonies and breathtaking instrumentals - which must make it very hard for Steve Knightley and Phil Beer to make each album better than the previous one. The subtle use of studio guests...adds that something extra, but when it comes down to basics, it is the sheer musical quality of Show of Hands that makes all the difference. Songs include a superb version of Nic Jones' Warlike lads of Russia, the brilliant Bristol Slaver and Bob Dylan's Farewell Angelina. Definitely the best of their many superb albums.'

Lie of the Land
Q Magazine - February 97 issue Folk Album of the Year!
Lie of the Land is the fourth album from Show of Hands, and has received a 4 star rating from Q magazine. It combines traditional techniques and forms with a new approach to acoustic music, creating a power and directness normally associated with rock music. The songs, the melodies, the stories, are dramatic for the uninitiated, 'Captains' is the track to start with - for those who know Show of Hands already, just press play!
The Telegraph: 'Songs of substance and stylish arrangements....a formidable partnership'
Q Magazine: 'Startlingly good....lyrical, sophisticated folk songs with their eyes firmly on the future....Maybe Wembley beckons.'
Mojo: 'Steve Knightley's vast windswept voice and elementally inspired songs conspire with Phil Beer's multi instrumentalist colourings to create a powerful, fresh sounding music....with both integrity and potentially widespread appeal'
Rock 'n Reel: 'A masterpiece... yet another stunning release from possibly the best acoustic duo around.'
The Living Tradition: 'Pretty slick stuff this....deserves its fair share of critical acclaim'
The Ledge: 'An intensely thought provoking album which should be on everyone's shelves....with the CD in the player'
Folk on Tap: A new album, a new selection of distinctive songs - all pedigrees....Another excellent album from the unique talent that is Show of Hands. It is a must for one's collection'

24 March 1996 - SHOW OF HANDS Live at The Royal Albert Hall
Recorded at the Duo's big gamble,self promoted gig earlier last year, this CD gives a great idea of just how superb a live act Show of Hands really are. Although the vast majority of tracks feature just the deadly duo, the use of guests Matt Clifford (keyboards), Sally Barker (vocals), Sara Allen (accordion), and Vladimir Vega (pan pipes) gives tracks such as 'Columbus (Didn't find America), 'The Well' and 'Santiago' that extra little bit of bite.
Three things stand out on this album: first, the quality of the songs - I love the lyrics on 'Cutthroats, Crooks and Con-men' - second, the lovely tone of Steve Knightley's voice, and lastly, the incredible instrumental ability of Phil Beer (just listen to the acoustic guitar work on 'Day Has Come' or his demon fiddle work on 'Soldier's Joy). It is also evident that the audience were having a ball - if you were there you will need this as the perfect souvenir, if you weren't then buy it to persuade you to see Show of Hands.
Tony Slinger, Venue Magazine