Below the Salt, above Expectations.

We went to see Steeleye Span in concert at Chesham’s Elgiva Theatre the other night, a small group of us. It was a fantastic concert.
I didn’t take any photos – yeah, I know, if there aren’t photos on Facebook (or WordPress) then it never happened, right?
I didn’t take any photos because I was simply transported by the quality of the musicianship.

I first encountered Steeleye Span in the early 1970’s, their particular brand of Folk-Rock was a wonderful counterpoint to the Progressive Rock that I was also getting into at the time. The concert was part of their 50th anniversary tour, postponed from 2019/20. Now in 2022 it also became the 50th anniversary of their fourth album “Below the Salt” which they played in its entirety during the first part of the show, all the tunes although as Maddy Prior, vocalist and only original member said, not necessarily in the right order…

Saying that Maddy was the only original member could be seen as somewhat of a let-down perhaps but one of the others has been there since 1989 and the rest are no newbies and certainly no slouches musically.

They played songs that I’d known since the seventies, songs such as: King Henry, One Misty Moisty Morning, The Weaver and the Factory Maid, All Around My Hat, Sheep-Crook and Black Dog, Royal Forester and a few, later songs that I didn’t know but was happy to make the acquaintance of such as The Dark Morris and Wintersmith both from an album inspired by Terry Pratchett’s novel, Wintersmith.

Steeleye Span doing Pratchett? Something I knew nothing about.
Yes, I’d fallen off of the Steeleye Span bandwagon, I was delighted to hear the old songs of course but now I am very curious to find out about the newer stuff.
Oh dear, I feel a spending spree coming on…
Anyway, all in all it was a rather splendid evening.

Cover of Below the Salt and photo from the Elgiva FB page attached below.