Steeleye Span at the Barbican!

The announcer said it was the wish of a lifetime: to see Steeleye Span at the Barbican. And we did it. Great stuff – Maddy Prior can still belt it out! And prance around the stage!

Steeleye Span playing at the Barbican, London

We first encountered the rock-folk band Steeleye Span in the early '80s – used to play their songs all the time while we were redecorating our first house. And now when I hear the songs, I smell paint!

The songs on December 19th, however, were mostly unfamiliar to me (so no paint), but they did sing their "signature songs" for a double encore. I yelled for "King Henry" ("more meat, more meat...") but to no avail; we got only "All Around My Hat" and "Gaudete".

Maddy was joined by Peter Knight (incredible fiddle) and Rick Kemp (incredible bass) from the nearly-original group from around 1970, with two other long-standing on&off members, Liam Genocky on drums and Pete Zorn on most everything. Julian Litman, the youngster in the ensemble, was on electric guitar. All of them sang at times. Between "halves", the Acoustic Strawbs provided a weirder set.

In the second half, SS were joined for a few pieces by Martin Carthy (possibly the single greatest name in British folk, and a founder-ish member of SS) on voice, guitar and five-string banjo, and Jon Spiers (of Bellowhead and Spiers & Boden, a famous name in current British Nu-Folk) on voice and melodeon - but they could hardly be heard and might as well not have been there. Pity. (They're in the photo, though.)

This was the end concert but one in a month-long tour of performances. Maddy is also holding a special weekend of "Stepping Stones Festival", billed as "Maddy's House Party" on May 5th and 6th, 2012.