A trip to a fantastic venue on Friday. Holmfirth Picturedrome is located in the middle of this countryside town, its a popular spot right next to the river and not your usual type of live concert setting. The room is acoustically excellent and the floor is set on a slope so wherever you stand you can see the stage. Highly recommended if you haven’t been before for a night out.
So onto tonights line up and first on stage was The Harriet Rose Band, not previously familiar with Harriet I was soon glad that I had discovered her and a fantastic band. What can be best described as Country / Americana style rock tunes which are powered along by Harriet’s great voice and a musically stellar band, It wasn’t long before the early crowd warmed up. On offer was a mixture of self penned up tempo songs complimented by soaring ballads, engaging stage presence from Harriet and the guys sealed the deal.
Based on the excellent audience reaction tonight, Harriet Rose has a bright future ahead in 2022.
Check out Harriet’s latest single a duet with Matt Peach called ‘Fare Thee Well’. Also give up tempo ‘Small Town Chains’ a listen. Both songs available on all major streaming platforms. To fully appreciate how good this band are go and see Harriet live as soon as you can.
Big Country
Big Country formed in 1981 and are still going strong with a line up including founder members lead guitarist Bruce Watson and drummer Mark Brzezicki. Completing the band are Bruce’s son Jamie (guitar) and Gil Allan (bass) along with power house vocalist Simon Hough.
Bursting on to the stage with floor tom thundering ‘1000 Stars’ the band immediately lit up the venue. Bruce has such an engaging and charismatic on stage personality, you cannot help smile as he moves around the stage, a true legend. Second song up was the now iconic ‘Look Away’ with the mixed age crowd immediately chanting every word, bouncing up and down as they did so.
What followed was a musical journey taking us through Big Country’s back catalogue, highlights (for me) were ‘Chance’ hearing the whole crowd singing the words with no music and of course the huge hits, ‘In a Big Country’, ‘Wonderland’ and ‘Fields of Fire’ to close the main set.
To be honest I hadn’t known what to expect tonight, this was the first 2022 date of an extensive UK and Australian tour and the band were simply awesome. Great vocals from Simon, superb musicianship, massive hits and show stopping stage presence all round.
Do yourself a favour and get a ticket to see Big Country this year, if for no other reason but to hear those iconic songs played live. In truth though you won’t be disappointed at the quality on offer from a band still knocking it out of the park after all these years.
Tickets for all 2022 dates can be found on www.bigcountry.co.uk
Fab review of The Harriet Rose Band. Definitely catch the full band and/or Harriet Rose solo this year !