Woodman Folk Club - Reviews

Fresh, dynamic, inspiring, vibrant are the adjectives I apply to the John Richards Band.  It was good to have them back again, well, they’ve been singing at the club in various guises for thirty years, so it wasn’t surprising there was a full house.

Ian Munro commenced the evening with ‘Liezah’ by the Coral also letting us know that he had seen his son’s last gig in this country because James was moving to Spain.

  Bryn followed with his upbeat ‘Father Confessor’ and one that was new to the club, Paul Metsers ‘Dancing Shoes’, both enthusiastically received.

  Barry followed with the Garth Brookes song ‘Learning to Live Again’ and ‘Drugs or Jesus’, a really compelling listen.

  By now we were all in the mood and ready for John Richards first set.

The five strong band started with ‘Billy Shaw’, followed by ‘Ploughman Lads’, ‘Devil of Gambling’ from ‘Walls of Hope’ their new CD.  Chris Drinan is back with the band playing flute, tin whistle and banjo, which he played on the next song, ‘Jimmy Murray’.  Emma was lead singer on the brilliant Tom Waites song ‘The Briar and the Rose’.  The first half ended with the wonderful ‘Red Eyes on a Blue Day’ again with Chris Drinan on banjo.  

A chat and a fresh beer later we were ready for the second set (don’t forget your raffle tickets!), which kicked off with the title track ‘Walls of Hope’ beautifully sung by Emma.  A hornpipe and two jigs, ‘When there’s snow on the Isthmus!’ their Christmas song, ‘Horse’s Head Rock’, ‘Washbourne Road’, ‘If You Can Walk You Can Dance’, all kept us wanting more, but it was way too late and it was their last song, ‘The Saddest Eyes of All’.  Well it wasn’t!  Ian managed to get them back to end with ‘Shine on’, all in all a spellbinding evening.  

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