Steve Knightley has been a mainstay of the English folk scene for decades. With Phil Beer in Show of Hands he came to define an accessible and popular version of folk, drawing inspiration from everything from sea shanties to Bruce Springsteen. For more than thirty years, they headlined festivals and toured to sold-out audiences. But then Covid came along and changed everything – not just for them but across the whole live music and festival sectors – and we’re still in a phase of readjustment as some festivals have disappeared and folk clubs and live venues have struggled with a plethora of challenges.
Show of Hands have hung up their touring togs for the time being for an ‘indefinite break’ allowing Steve and Phil to explore other avenues. Steve released a solo album The Winter Yards in 2024, our reviewer said of the opening track, ‘Transactions’ that it was “classic Knightley songwriting in the way that it draws lessons to be learnt from the news headlines. In this case, juxtaposing population change, fluid personal identities and the Post Office scandal viewed through a lens of social justice”. He followed the release with a solo tour that was met with an enthusiastic response from audiences. The question now is: how do you keep that material fresh for the tours that follow?
I’ve interviewed Steve several times over the years, generally in a festival field with many distractions and pints of beer, but the Steve Knightley who sits down in front of me for this Zoom interview is looking extremely trim and fit. Laughing at my observation of this he confesses that he has been getting in shape to both keep up with his younger touring partners and to be fit and gig ready for the twenty four dates through October, November and December 2025. What can we expect from this new outfit?
“So I thought, okay, the album got great reviews. I mean, the best I’ve ever had really. And then you’re back with that conundrum of how do you recreate this live?“ Well, pulling together the likes of David Delarre on guitar, Evan Carson on percussion, and double bass expert John Parker as a brand new four-piece is a good start, “Evan Carson is a fantastic percussionist. David Delarre, he’s got a rock sensibility, but he knows his trad, he knows his roots. And finally, someone suggested John Parker. And as soon as we got together I said, let’s get drunk together before we play a note. Let’s just socialise, and we’ve ended up with this lovely band collective attitude, we all get on great guns”.
As an old hand at this, I wondered how much control Steve would exert over the project; “I just thought, I’m not going to drive this like I’m used to doing. I’ll just let the guys shape the arrangements and they just seem to take the songs into another realm, I’m almost calling it ‘folk noir’. It’s quite dark. Some of it, it’s not jazz, but they’ve got that jazz restraint about the way that they play.” It’s an aesthetic that seems to have informed their attitude as well “let’s look like riverboat gamblers, if you like. I like the idea that people go into a room and go, oh, there’s the band over there. They’re not in t-shirts and shorts when they go on stage.”
It’s an aesthetic that seems to be working, adding the Penzance duo of True Foxes as show openers should take the slightly blocky edge off – “the final ingredient was True Foxes, we got them to sing on the album and they have that beautiful sibling quality in their voices and I thought, well, if they open the show, they can join us for the show”, so expect some soaring harmonies. Steve adds “it’s up to me in a way to provide the music that does justice to their talents, and so far it seems to be working” he certainly doesn’t need to worry about that, both the songs and the talent performing them are top notch, “it’s looking good and they’re all up for festival season next year, So yeah, I’m very, very pleased with the momentum at the moment”.
Steve Knightley has always had a knack for collaboration and spotting new raw talent, over thirty years with Show of Hands saw them featuring some phenomenal artists at the beginning of their careers, from Seth Lakeman to Edgelarks, even Fisherman’s Friends. It’s something that they don’t always get much credit for, and even Steve says ”It’s not all philanthropy because you inherit that energy yourself!”, maybe that’s part of the secret of keeping a long career feeling fresh. Certainly with songwriting Knightley has been eclectic in his sources, from trad English folk song to Americana, it’s all fertile ground for him.
As well as getting himself trim — he’s shed 24lb, by the way — tour preparations also include two full days of technical rehearsal. “I just need to know the songs off by heart, really!” Steve adds with a smile. Somehow, it doesn’t sound like there’s much to worry about; with musicians of this calibre, the tour is sure to be firing on all cylinders from the very first night. Dates and tickets are available at https://steveknightley.com/
Iain Hazlewood
