Radio 1 Documentary from the 2008 Lake of Stars Festival, Malawi

Seth pops up briefly in this Mary Anne Hobbs documentary for Radio 1.

Photo from thelakeofstars.blogspot.com

The Lake of Stars Festival brings together UK and European acts with Afrobeat, gospel and tradtional African music on the tropical shores of Lake Malawi. The Radio 1 documentary web page includes links to listen online and a 2 min video so you can really get an idea what this unique festival is like. You can also download the entire programme as an MP3 file. See the links at the end.

Seth is on around the 40min and 57min mark. Also, in photos 5 and 19 on the Radio 1 web page and in a few more photos on the official festival blog.

Worth a listen if you are interested in learning more about the festival and hearing lots of different music and artists, otherwise, honestly?, "obSethive completist" territory.

ps. Thanks for Clarros for the heads-up.

Mary Anne Hobbs at Malawi’s Lake Of Stars festival, BBC Radio 1
Listen online, video and further info | Download (mp3) | Photos (nos 5 & 19)

Lake of Stars Website & Blog
Seth Lakeman gig photos | Festival website | Festival blog

Southampton gig, 18 Jan 2009

Another small venue gig, standing this time, at Southampton’s The Brook on 18 January. Details from The Brook website. Tickets £16. Online bookings at WeGotTickets.com (booking fee payable).

More gig dates, including another new addition at Buxton Opera House in May, on the new gigs page.

Seth Lakeman’s "Best Stuff" of 2008

Seth does his ‘The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year’ thing for Mojo magazine. The short version:

Gigs:

• Cherryholmes (Cambridge Folk Festival)
  "I was completely blown away …this family band doing bluegrass and all sorts and every one of them singing so well. I thought I’d discovered them. I ran back to the guys and said we must get them on tour supporting us! It wasn’t until afterwards that I found out they were already huge in the States and had won about four Grammies, so it would have been more a question of us supporting them!
• Steve Earle (Big Session, Leicester)
• Kaiser Chiefs (Rock for People, Prague)
• Oysterband (Beautiful Days, Devon)
  "I’ve seen them loads of times before but this was just one of those occasions when everything worked right. I love their latest album Meet You There anyway and that gig was very special."

Albums:

• Levon Helm Dirt Farmer
  "you can tell it’s set around a live atmosphere … there’s such a great emphasis on rhythm, which appeals to me "
• Benji Kirkpatrick‘s fantastic, inexplicably under-rated, more explicably under-publicised Boomerang
  (on which, completists will want to know, Seth does fiddle duty for a couple of tracks)

Full interview: ‘Seth Lakeman: The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year’, Mojo magazine, 25 Nov 2008 »

First Seth Lakeman gig date for 2009 confirmed

The first confirmed gig date for 2009 is for 22 May at Shrewsbury’s new Theatre Severn. This will be a rare fully-seated performance at this relatively small (600+ capacity) venue, which is due to open in March next year. The set up would seem to confirm rumours that the 2009 ‘spring tour’ may consist of just five or so seated performances at smaller venues around April/May.

Tickets are £16 and are available direct from the Theatre at www.theatresevern.co.uk. You can even choose your exact seats using their nifty interactive seating plan.

Nominated for Best Live Act, BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2009

Seth has been nominated for Best Live Act at the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Seth will be up against against stiff competition from long-standing Folk Awards favourite, "folk big band" Bellowhead, last year’s Best Group winners, Lau, and the Demon Barbers. Bellowhead have won the Best Live Act award no less than three times in the last four years (in 2005, 2007 and 2008), and were named Best Group in 2007. Three-piece Lau won Best Group in 2008, and were also nominated for Best Live Act.

The fabulous Demon Barbers are the outsiders. Not previously either a winner or nominee in the awards (although founder, Damien Barber, was a finalist in the Radio 2 Young Tradition Awards on multiple occasions during his mis-spent youth), they arguably deserve the nod more than anyone, not least for the improbable achievement of making morris dancing sexy. No. Seriously.

Introducing the Demon Barbers (video)

(Desperate attempt at Seth Lakeman connection = former Lakeman percussionist, Cormac Byrne, at around the 4m 30s mark) More Demon Barbers on MySpace »

There are no nominations for Poor Man’s Heaven, either for Best Album, or Best Original or Best Traditional Track. Seth won Folk Singer of the Year and Best Album at the 2007 awards for his previous album, Freedom Fields. He was also nominated for Best Live Act and (controversially) Best Traditional Track.

Nominations are decided by a free vote among the Folk Awards panel of around 170 broadcasters, folk journalists, festival organisers, agents, and promoters, all working within the folk genre on a regular basis. The same panel then vote again to select a winner from the four nominees in each category. The winners will be announced at the award ceremony in London on Monday 2 February 2009.

Autumn Tour 2008: Round-up pt II

See also:
Seth Lakeman Autum Tour 2008 update (pt I)
Seth Lakeman Autumn Tour Dates

Photo by Alan Cole
More of Alan’s photos from Bristol 2008 »

Stand-in Drummer Simon Lea

Simon Lea continues to stand in for regular percussionist, Andy Tween, who has injured his wrist. Andy made a short-lived return for his home gig in Bristol (29 Oct), as well as for Bournemouth and Cheltenham (12/13 Nov) at which he hoped he was back for the rest of the tour, but Simon has covered drumming duties since.

Gig reviews

Shades of Caruso awards Seth the Emphatically Non-Hipster Non-Douchebag Recommendation Of The Week in a well-written review of the Shepherd’s Bush Empire gig, plus a quick run-down and of Seth’s career to-date including videos clips

Over on A Million Miles from Here A Night in the Church of the Black T-Shirt » is a detailed gig write-up of the same London gig, plus videos of popular support act Baskery, and live performances of Haunt You (shot at SBE) and Kitty Jay (not)

In The Times (10 Nov 2008) David Sinclair writes “Lakeman put on a show that would have been as acceptable at the Reading Festival as it would at the Cambridge Folk Festival … As the lights darkened and an ominous peal of thunder rumbled from the PA, it was more like the beginning of the first Black Sabbath album… Yet the 31-year-old singer was armed with nothing more threatening than an acoustic guitar”. Poor Man’s Heaven represents a more mainstream direction for this reviewer, and Lakeman “clearly has his eyes on bigger prizes… but it was still the old numbers that elicited the most raucous response, notably Blood upon Copper and Kitty Jay, both of which featured Lakeman in trad fiddler mode and brought out the best in his playing. ”

“It’s not that Seth’s music is bad” Rob Garrett dissents in his review for the Norwich Evening News (5 Nov 2008) “it’s just a bit dull, and it isn’t folk.” Although he goes on to praise Seth’s “strong, evocative voice” he nonetheless finds “the whole thing all falls flat on its face a little”.

Emma Hardwick, on the other hand, is keen to assure readers of the Leicester Mercury (12 Nov 2008) that “If you’re off to a Seth Lakeman gig you can rest assured he will put everything into the evening and you can leave with a smile on your face … The sheer energy of his set, where he sings, plays frenetic fiddle and a drum at the same time is infectious.” Although Kitty Jay is the “sure-fire crowd pleaser … the rest of the set didn’t disappoint”

The tour continues to 18 November

Shades of Caruso’s “Emphatically Non-Hipster Non-Douchebag Recommendation Of The Week: Seth Lakeman”

I don’t normally blog about other people’s blogs on here, but this is both an amusing review of Seth’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire gig (at which there were allegedly “exactly zero hipster douchebags”) and good general intro to Seth’s career post Mercury Prize nomination from back in the days when, the writer says, “I must still have been thinking that the award was still relevant and inspiring … because I watched the preview show, which featured Lakeman. I was blown away by his musicianship and haunting, resonant songs, many of which were arrangements of traditional English airs.”

Arguably all the better for not being an uncritical fanboy/girl, and definitely recommended if your love for “Handsome Seth Lakeman” is still in its infancy, or you’ve accidentally arrived here looking for something else and are now intrigued.

Shades of Caruso: Emphatically Non-Hipster Non-Douchebag Recommendation Of The Week: Seth Lakeman »

New official photos, Oct 08

The players (ltr, bottom pic): Sean Lakeman (producer, guitar), Seth Lakeman, Andy Tween (percussion), Ben Nicholls (double-bass).
From the official website »

Interview on BBC Radio Scotland (until 9 Nov)

Seth appeared on Tom Morton’s show on BBC Radio Scotland yesterday for an interview and live performances of Kitty Jay and Send Yourself Away.

Available on BBC iPlayer until 9 Nov 2008. Seth is on around the 22min mark:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00f5b29

There’s a blurry shot of Seth squashed into the Radio Scotland studio on Tom Morton’s blog »

Thanks to Helen on the Mire for the link.

Autumn Tour 2008 Update

See also Autumn Tour 2008: Roundup pt II

The nearly month-long tour of UK and Ireland is now in its second week, so time for some updates.

Tickets and gig reports

Tickets are still available for most dates. Dates, venues and ticket links here »

Keep an eye on the Seth Lakeman Forum for pre-gig excitement, post-gig reports, and the odd photo (though not that many as yet).

Support Acts

Support act for all dates except Dublin and Belfast are Swedish sister-act Baskery. Describing themselves as "high voltage, killbilly, banjopunk, blues-grass, mud-country" they met Seth and the gang when both groups played Tønder festival in Denmark this summer. You can listen to sample tracks and find more about the band on their MySpace page. They also have a blog (should you speak swedish) although it hasn’t been updated since August.

Dublin and Belfast support will be Ireland’s own Dan Donnelly aka Sonovagun, who may be familiar as the support act from the 2006 tours and this summer’s Morwhellan folk festival.

Baskey links
Official website | MySpace page | Blog

Dan Donnelly links
Official website | MySpace page

New drummer

Regular drummer since 2006, Andy Tween, has injured his wrist and so was replaced for Tuesday’s gig in Oxford by new boy Simon Lea (thanks to Cal for correct spelling) who will also be playing at least some of the forthcoming gigs. Good luck to Simon, and get better soon Andy!

Update 30 Oct: my spies on the Forum report that Mr Tween was back at the back in Bristol last night, so all’s well.

Update 5 Nov: spoke too soon :(